The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly, has extended the Greater Sydney region COVID-19 hotspot for the purposes of Commonwealth support to July 16 for Greater Sydney, including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Shellharbour and Wollongong.
Kelly said members of the public need to consider the increased risk of the highly transmissible Delta variant and requested that they continue to follow the directions of New South Wales Health.
Declaring a hotspot for Commonwealth support triggers the following actions, if required, including:
- access to PPE from the National Medical Stockpile for eligible aged care services
- actions for aged care facilities including PPE, single site workforce supplement and integration of an aged care response centre into the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre
- assistance with contact tracing
- asymptomatic testing via General Practice Respiratory Clinics
- reprioritisation of vaccine supplies, if required
- access to COVID Disaster Payment, if eligibility criteria is met, including the state imposed lockdown runs for greater than 7 days.
Please note, single site workforce arrangements and activation of the Support for Aged Care Workers in COVID-19 remain in place until July 24.
