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The northern New South Wales local government areas (LGAs) of Byron Shire, Tweed and Kempsey will go back into lockdown for one week from 5pm today after COVID-19 cases were detected in the region.
The lockdown will be implemented due to the heightened COVID-19 public health risk according to NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard.
The stay-at-home orders also apply to anyone who has been in Kempsey since 14 September, or Byron or Tweed since 18 September.
Everyone in the affected LGAs must stay at home unless it is for an essential reason, which includes shopping for food, medical care, getting vaccinated, compassionate needs, exercise and work or tertiary education if you can’t work or study at home.
People who are fully vaccinated can attend an outdoor gathering of up to five people for exercise or outdoor recreation, as long as all of those aged 16 or older are fully vaccinated.
“I encourage everybody in those areas to take this very seriously,” Hazzard said.
“So far those areas have been kept relatively safe, but we need the community to keep getting tested so that the public health team can be very certain of what we need to do at the expiration of those seven days.”
The order comes after NSW reported 1,022 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases today and 10 deaths, with most of the new cases being detected in Sydney’s west and south-west.
Updated at 11.24am AEST on 21 September 2021.
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