Police have charged three men who allegedly knew they had COVID-19 but still travelled from Sydney to the state's Central West.
Key points:
- The three removalists made stops in regional towns before arriving at Molong
- Police Minister David Elliott says regional towns are now at risk
- 162 personal infringement notices were issued yesterday
Just after 2:30pm on Friday, officers spoke to four men — two aged 27, one aged 21 and one aged 49 — in Molong, about 300km from Sydney, after receiving information they had travelled from West Hoxton, in the Liverpool local government area (LGA).
The Liverpool LGA, in Sydney's south-west, has been identified as an area of particular concern in NSW's outbreak of the Delta COVID-19 variant.
The men were working as removalists.
It will be alleged the younger three men made the journey despite being notified they had tested positive for the virus.
Police Minister David Elliott said: "We know that the Delta variant is highly transmissible, and it is unfathomable to think that, with all the public information and health warnings, people could so blatantly ignore the health orders."
Before travelling to Molong, police say the men went to Figtree in the Illawarra region, and also stopped in South Bowenfels and Orange.
"This thoughtless act has now placed our regional communities in NSW at the greatest risk so far with this pandemic," Mr Elliott said.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Worboys said officers would "ramp up" their presence in Greater Sydney to ensure compliance with stay-at-home orders.
Their focus will still be in the LGAs of Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool, in the city's south-west.
Several public health orders designed to combat COVID-19 will be strengthened from 11:59pm tonight after 111 new infections were announced in the NSW government's most recent update.
Under the new restrictions, people in the LGAs of Canterbury-Bankstown, Liverpool and Fairfield will not be able to leave that area for work.
The only people who will be able to leave those LGAs for work are essential health and emergency service workers.
Eighty-three of the new cases were in the South Western Sydney Local Health District.
On Friday, 162 personal infringements notices were issued and Deputy Commissioner Worboys said it was disappointing to see so many people breaking the rules.
"Currently, we are seeing millions of people right across this state doing the right thing being let down by a small minority who continue to be irresponsible and put themselves and their communities at risk," he said.
"Today's strengthening of the health orders means that people will have to change the way that they behave."
Canterbury-Bankstown Mayor Khal Asfour's LGA is impacted by the latest health orders.
He said it was a worry the number of cases in his area were continuing to increase and blames the government for not acting sooner to protect his community.
ABC News
)While the current COVID-19 outbreak in NSW began in Bondi, it is now centered in the city's south-west.
"Clearly if the Premier had shut down the eastern suburbs weeks ago with a harder lockdown we would not be in this situation we're in now," Mr Asfour said.
"I think the horse has bolted and we're doing our best as a community but we need to be all in this together not parts of Sydney treated differently than others."
Mr Asfour said his community had had a "gutful of the finger pointing" and the "blaming".
"Our community has heeded the message we are doing the right thing but unfortunately because of the flip-flopping of this government, because of the policy on the run and the decisions they're making we've been treated unfairly," Mr Asfour said.
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2021-07-17 06:54:38Z
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