The NSW government has tightened restrictions after a COVID-19 cluster in Sydney ballooned to 70 cases, but conceded it may never be able to find the source.
The state reported another 30 cases in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday with 28 linked to the cluster on Sydney’s northern beaches.
That takes the total number of known coronavirus cases in NSW to 70.
“While the numbers are higher today than yesterday, the one positive is we still have not seen evidence of massive seeding outside the northern beaches community and our aim, of course, is to keep that in place,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Sunday.
The government has imposed a number of restrictions on greater Sydney, including the Blue Mountains and the Central Coast, which will remain in place until 11.59pm until Wednesday.
No more than 10 people are allowed at household gatherings and patrons will need to maintain a four-square metre distancing at venues.
Up to 300 people will be permitted at places of worship and hospitality venue attendance, while singing and chanting at indoor venues is banned and dance floors will only be allowed at weddings.
People are being urged to wear masks until Wednesday and to avoid visiting any vulnerable friends, relatives or aged care facilities.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the level of restrictions being imposed balances the public health interest with the need to keep the economy open.
“You can safely say that NSW leads the country in keeping jobs and keeping the economy moving, and keeping people safe,” he said.
“I am confident that … we have diamond-level health tracers and I think the work that we have done over that period has been a very balanced way of approaching this.”
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said that contact tracers are yet to locate patient zero, but an extensive investigation is underway.
She said no one who has been granted quarantine exemptions, including international flight crews had tested positive for the virus.
Dr Chant admitted that contact tracers may never be able to find patient zero.
“While we really do want to find the source, it may be that this is going to be a challenge beyond us, but we are doing everything we can,” Dr Chant said.
Queensland has reintroduced border passes for NSW travellers and warned Queenslanders not to venture over the border.
It comes after an infected Sydney woman who spent Wednesday overnight on the Sunshine Coast was linked to the northern beaches cluster.
Related: Infected women was ‘turned away’ from Sunshine Coast University Hospital
Christmas travel plans are in chaos as most states rushed to restrict movements, with WA taking the strictest approach of reimposing a “hard” border with NSW.
Meanwhile, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, scheduled to begin on Boxing Day, has been cancelled because of the Tasmanian restrictions on visitors from NSW.
Ms Berejiklian has urged her interstate counterparts to take a proportional response.
“It is a hotspot, no denying that, but… there’s no evidence that it’s outside northern beaches,” she said.
Genomic sequencing has connected the cluster to a US strain of the virus, which may have entered NSW in a returned traveller in early December.
That traveller has never left the hotel quarantine system, and the connection between that case and the northern beaches remains unclear.
-with AAP
