“What concerns us greatly is the number of cases being acquired without us knowing the source,” Ms Berejiklian said at her daily press conference this morning.
“What we call the community-to-community transmission. That is something we have to keep mindful of and something that our health experts are most worried about here in NSW, the number of cases acquired when you don’t know the source of that case.”
Overnight, there were 91 new cases of COVID-19 across NSW, bringing the state’s total to 2389.
Ten people have died, and 42 people are currently being treated in intensive care units, with 22 on ventilators.
“We know that until we increase the capacity in our hospitals, until we get more intensive care beds, we won’t be able to deal with the massive influx of patients,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“We want to make sure that when every patient needs a ventilator or bed that’s available. We’re not sure of that yet.
“That’s why we are using this time to make sure we double, triple, quadruple our capacity in our health system because no health system anywhere in the world has been built for a pandemic.
“That’s what we’re dealing with.”
The premier stressed that it’s not her intention to impose further restrictions on the community, and reiterated the need for to stay at home unless they absolutely need to leave.
“If we can’t identify the source it mean west can’t deal with the spread. That is something we’re worried about,” she said.
They then travelled home across Australia. Commissioner Mick Fuller will work to investigate what went wrong.
Comm. Fuller confirmed two of eight cruise ships stranded off the NSW coast have left Australian waters to return to their ports of origin.
Yesterday a 55-year-old crew member was taken off the ship because he needed “intense medical assistance”. There are currently five ships with crew on board, not passengers, in NSW waters.
Also announced this morning were $10,000 grants for small businesses across the state to help those that have been severely affected by the coronavirus to assist with fixed costs, utilities and rent.
Source: 9News
