Gladys Berejiklian has lashed out at New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden for cutting off flights from NSW over just two Covid cases.
The NSW premier said the snap flight ban was an overaction after the wife of an infected man in his 50s also tested positive to the virus.
The short-term travel pause started on Thursday at 11.59pm and will last for at least 48 hours until the scale of the potential outbreak is more clear.
New Zealand has paused the trans-Tasman bubble for 48hours after NSW records two Covid cases (pictured: people embrace at Auckland airport)
The trans-Tasman travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand has been burst by two Covid-19 cases in Sydney (stock image)
The BBQ Man at the centre of Sydney s new coronavirus scare spent all Saturday afternoon finding the perfect grill to cook up a peri-peri chicken feast.
The man from Woollhara, in the eastern surburbs, who tested positive to the Indian variant of the virus on Wednesday, trekked across Sydney s inner west and western suburbs shopping for grills.
Finally he found the one he wanted at Barbeques Galore, and drove out to Casula in Sydney s west to pick it up at 4.30pm.
The next day he visited the Meat Store in Bondi Junction where he bought peri-peri chicken at $17.99 a kilo, according to the butcher.
New South Wales has recorded no new cases of coronavirus but restrictions including mask-wearing will remain in place until Monday morning.
A Sydney couple infected by the double mutant Indian variant of the disease tested positive on Wednesday and Thursday and are isolating at home.
Officials are scrambling to find out how they caught the virus, which has the same genomic sequence as a traveller from the US in hotel quarantine.
New South Wales has recorded no new cases of coronavirus but restrictions including mask-wearing will remain in place until Monday morning. Pictured: Commuters on Friday
NSW Transport workers hand out face masks at Town Hall rail station in Sydney
Australia s top doctor warns Sydney may see more cases as a potential new coronavirus infection in Manly raised fears of a bigger outbreak.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly was asked at a press conference on Friday if he had heard about a potential case on the Northern Beaches, and replied that he didn t have any details. There was no new cases when the AHPPC met just a few minutes ago but they are continuing to do a lot of testing and people are coming forward to be tested which is fantastic, he said.
Australia s Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said he didn t have any details about the two Covid risk locations in the Northern Beaches
The Queensland government will force returned travellers from New South Wales into hotel quarantine if they visited a venue exposed to coronavirus.
NSW on Thursday introduced a raft of restrictions for Greater Sydney after the state recorded two local Covid infections, mysteriously traced back to a returned traveller from the U.S. who contracted an Indian strain of the virus.
The two cases, a married couple from Sydney s eastern suburbs, attended a string of venues across the city while potentially infectious, causing concern Covid could be circulating in the community.
Queensland responded on Thursday afternoon, with Health Minister Yvette D Ath announcing that anyone who arrives in the Sunshine State from 1am on Friday - and visited potential Covid exposure sites in Sydney - will be required to undergo hotel quarantine.