People wait in line at a coronavirus testing clinic at Mona Vale Hospital on 18 December in the wake of an outbreak on Sydney’s northern beaches.
Photograph: Loren Elliott/Reuters
In late December, the phrases #GladysCluster, #GladysTheCovidiot and #GladysOutbreak began to trend periodically on Twitter, as some users of the social media platform began calling on the New South Wales premier to #LockNSWdown.
It was a response to a slowly growing but concerning number of cases and clusters of Covid-19 in the New South Wales community. After weeks of no reported community cases of the virus, a man from south-west Sydney tested positive on 16 December. He had been working as a van driver shuttling airline crew between Sydney airport and their accommodation.