New South Wales has recorded three new locally-acquired COVID-19 cases with more than 16,000 people coming forward to get tested in the last 24 hours.
All three cases are directly linked to the Avalon cluster and are all in isolation.
An additional three cases outside of the Northern Beaches region were recorded after 8pm last night and are being investigated, including one in Wollongong, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced.
The Wollongong case had visited Sydney, but not the Northern Beaches.
The cluster is now at 129 cases but with positive cases growing outside of the Northern Beaches, Ms Berejiklian warned that the risk in Greater Sydney “is becoming almost equal” to that of the Northern Beaches.
“Even if you live in the regions, if you have the mildest of symptoms please come forward to get tested,” Ms Berejikilian said.
“[Cases] outside of the Northern Beaches is always a cause for concern and validates the advice health experts have been giving the government.
“We want to make sure we lock down all of those potential chains of transmission we may have previously missed.”
The growing number of cases prompted Ms Berejiklian to send a warning to all residents of NSW.
“I am asking everybody across the state to be on high alert,” she said.
“You might think you are in a remote part of New South Wales … but you may have been with someone who has been to another part of the state where they could have acquired the virus.
“Please be on your toes and be on high alert.”
The Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant also urged residents in the state to get tested.
“Those investigations are ongoing, we believe they have spent some time in the central business district, or the centre of the city,” she said.
“There are three cases that we are currently investigating.
“One of them is the Wollongong case, one is from the inner West, and there is one from the northern area.”
There will be relief for southern zone of the Northern Beaches on the 3 January.
“The risks and Greater Sydney and greater New South Wales is almost as high as the southern bit of the Northern Beaches,” Ms Berejiklian said.
The Premier anticipates the northern-zone of the Northern Beaches will experience some relief on the 9th of January.
NSW has reached a milestone of more than four million tests since the beginning of the year.
It comes as Sydneysiders have been mostly banned from watching the famous New Year’s Eve fireworks after the city’s harbour foreshores shut down for the first time.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday the area will remain in lockdown into the new year after four new local virus cases were confirmed on Monday. A fifth is still under investigation.
A plan to give frontline coronavirus workers from around NSW prime seats to the fireworks on Sydney Harbour has also been cancelled.
“It’s too much of a health risk having people from the regions and from Sydney and from broader regional areas congregate all in the CBD,” Ms Berejiklian said.
Victoria on Tuesday recorded its 60th consecutive day without a locally-acquired COVID-19 case.
Queensland, which has gone 104 days without any community transmission, recorded five new cases in hotel quarantine on Monday. There are currently 13 active cases in the state.
South Australia on Monday recorded one COVID-19 case in hotel quarantine, while Western Australia recorded three COVID-19 cases in hotel quarantine.
Australia’s death toll from coronavirus is now 909, after a NSW man in his 70s who was infected with COVID-19 in March recently died of respiratory complications.
With additional reporting from AAP.
