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It has now been one month since a COVID-19 infection was reported in a limousine driver from the eastern suburbs, starting a virus outbreak that has forced Australia’s two largest cities to spend this weekend in lockdown as case numbers escalate.
More than 1000 cases have now been recorded across Greater Sydney, as the focus of spread shifted from the east to the south-west. Here are eight graphs that explain how things have progressed over the past four weeks.
Numbers increased from east to west
These two maps show that cases have shifted from Sydney’s eastern suburbs (driven by exposures at retail and hospitality venues) to the south-west (driven by exposures at essential workplaces and through family networks) over the past month. The most rapid increase has been seen in the Fairfield local government area, where 294 cases were recorded over the past week after just 25 were acquired in the previous three.
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A revealing graph shows how Sydney went into Covid-19 lockdown much earlier in its current outbreak than Melbourne did during its horror second wave last year.
The eastern suburbs of Australia s biggest city were locked down on the ninth day of the outbreak on June 26 when there were just 64 cases. The lockdown was extended to the whole city just two days later.
In contrast, Melbourne locked down its 10 worst-affected postcodes on day 35 of last year s outbreak on July 1, when there were already 446 cases in the community.
Melbourne locked down its 10 worst-affected postcodes on day 35 of its 2020 outbreak on July 1, when there were already 446 cases in the community. Sydney s recent outbreak is in blue and Melbourne s second wave is in red
Liverpool local government area
Testing is carried out at the new 24-hour drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at the Mountie s Club carpark in Mount Prichard, Sydney, on Thursday. Photo: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images
The 65 new cases reported on Thursday were found in 58,299 tests to 8pm on Wednesday and take the state s latest outbreak to 929.
The outbreak emerged on June 16 after a Bondi limo driver who transports international aircrew contracted the virus.
Overnight, NSW Health updated their exposure sites list to include four bus routes, a McDonald’s and a post office.
A person wearing a mask walks past an empty restaurant offering takeaway in the Sydney CBD, during lockdown on Wednesday. Photo: Steven Saphore/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
New South Wales has recorded 65 local cases of Covid-19 overnight - but 28 of them were out in the community for the entire time they were infectious.
Ms Berejiklian said the drop in locally-acquired infections - down from 97 new cases on Wednesday - was a promising sign authorities may be turning the tide on the state s highly-contagious outbreak of the Delta variant.
Sydney is nearing the end of a third week of a strict stay-at-home lockdown, which was on Wednesday extended until at least July 30 to stem the spread of the virus.
There are now 73 patients across the state in hospital suffering from Covid-19 (up two from Wednesday) and 19 in intensive care (down one from Wednesday).
While emojis are one of the easiest forms of communicating in a text format some youths are using the popular characters as codewords for various drugs.
KIIS FM radio hosts Kyle and Jackie O discussed the countless emojis being used amongst the younger generation on Thursday morning with the show s producer Tom revealing which ones had more sinister meanings behind them.
Tom said teenagers would often send texts to each other in just emojis so their parents wouldn t catch on to what they were actually talking about.
The secret meanings were first shared by American relationship expert, Dr Laura Berman who tragically lost her 16-year-old son to a drug overdose in February this year.