“At this stage there is no need to restrict travel to the bush. My message has been if you can avoid travelling into Sydney or out of Sydney, please do,” he said on Today this morning.
“We know some people have bookings but we need to find the balance. At this stage, the restrictions stay as they are.”
He said another “one or two” cases connected to the Berala outbreak would be reported later today.
“But, again, numbers look OK. Contact tracing is in place,” he said.
“Nothing in front of me today says I should panic,” he later said on 2GB.
The fact that new case numbers associated with the Berala cluster were slowly increasing, compared to huge spikes with the Avalon cluster, meant western Sydney suburbs did not need to be placed in lockdown.
“What we were seeing during that Christmas holiday period brought great risk. Mobility, people moving during the Christmas period, we know would have been significant,” Mr Barilaro said.
“That is why we did the lockdown for the peninsula… At this stage, there is no need for advice from Health that we have to go to a lockdown approach for the Berala or Western Sydney.”
