Two locally acquired COVID-19 cases have emerged in Sydney, triggering a change in restrictions to mitigate the spread of the virus.
On Wednesday, NSW Health announced a man in his 50s tested positive. He has not recently travelled overseas, does not work in a hotel quarantine, border or health role, and has not recently travelled interstate. His wife has since also tested positive to the virus.
On Thursday morning, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced new restrictions for Greater Sydney, which she says will last three days.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant has said that genome testing in the past 24 hours has allowed them to understand more about where and how this man may have picked up the virus.
Here's what else you need to know about the two cases.
Gladys Berejiklian on the tightening of restrictions.
For the next three days, the following restrictions will be in place from 5:00pm today and will last until Sunday midnight.
- No more than 20 guests in a home.
- No singing or dancing in indoor venues, including places of worship and entertainment venues, with the exception of weddings. At weddings, only 20 people at a time can be on the dance floor.
- Outside of weddings, there's no singing in congregations and no dancing, apart from obviously the performers in a show.
- Mask-wearing at indoor places will be compulsory, including public transport, the supermarket and any indoor event.
- Compulsory mask wearing for hospitality workers.
The possible source of infection for the mystery case.
Dr Chant said the sequence of the mystery case matched with an overseas case who had travelled from the US and went to the Park Hotel at Darling Harbour on April 28.
However, while they believe this is the original source of the infection, they still do not know how the man in his 50s became infected.
"We can't find any direct link between our case, so what we're concerned about is that there is another person that is yet unidentified that infected our case," Dr Chant said on Thursday.