NSW authorities call state COVID-19 outbreak a ‘national emergency’ as 136 new local cases recorded

New South Wales has recorded 136 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 as health authorities say the current outbreak has become a “national emergency”.

Of the new cases recorded in the 24 hours to 8pm on Thursday, 53 were infectious in the community, while another 17 were in the community for part of their infectious period.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Friday the upward trend of daily COVID-19 infections means the Greater Sydney lockdown is likely to be extended yet again.

“There is no doubt that the numbers are not going in the direction we were hoping they would at this stage. It is fairly apparent that we will not be close to zero next Friday,” she said.

A review will be conducted next week for the plan into August and beyond.

One new death has also been recorded involving an 89-year-old male.

Call to redirect more vaccine supply to western Sydney

Ms Berejiklian said the current situation is now being regarded as a “national emergency” and announced a further tightening of restrictions in the local government areas of Cumberland and Blacktown in Sydney’s west.

Workers in those LGAs are now also not allowed to leave unless they are “authorised workers”.

“[Chief Health Officer Kerry] Chant and her team advised us that the situation that exists now in New South Wales, namely around south-western and now western Sydney suburbs, is regarded as a national emergency. For that purpose and for that reason the NSW government will be taking action in relation to that,” the premier said.

Ms Berejiklian said she supported Dr Chant’s declaration of a “national emergency” and appealed for Australia’s vaccine strategy to be refocused into Sydney.

“This is not just a challenge for New South Wales but a challenge for the nation,” she said.

“In order for us to have our citizens live freely and openly, as well as other states to ensure that their citizens live openly and freely, we need to have a national refocus.”

The premier said she had made requests to the federal government for more Pfizer vaccines to be redirected to regions of Sydney with the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

She said it was important to be getting younger people in southwestern Sydney and western Sydney vaccinated with the shot.

“We have to acknowledge there is a much younger population in those affected communities and we also need to refocus the national vaccination to getting at least the first jab of Pfizer in some of those demographic cohorts to prevent the spread.”

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison later said he wouldn’t overhaul the national vaccine rollout to answer NSW’s plea for help.

“Where there is potential to put more vaccines into New South Wales, even beyond what we are doing, of course we will seek to do that,” he told reporters in Canberra after a national cabinet meeting.

“But we’re not going to disrupt the vaccination program around the rest of the country.”

However, Mr Morrison did say national cabinet had discussed the state administering more first doses of Pfizer by extending second doses out to six weeks, within the medical advice.

SBS