NSW has recorded seven new COVID-19 cases from 23,933 tests.
All were recorded in the 24 hours to 8pm on Saturday and are linked to the northern beaches, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on December 27.
Six are confirmed as part of the Avalon cluster, bringing the number of cases in the outbreak to around 122.
The seventh case, a firefighter who works at Crows Nest but lives on the northern beaches, is still under investigation.
Three fire stations have been closed for deep cleaning and Fire and Rescue NSW is working with NSW Health to identify all contacts.
The firefighter attended the northern beaches’ Belrose Hotel on December 11 and authorities are urging anyone who visited the pub in December to be tested if they have symptoms.
This is in light of other mysterious connections between the hotel and confirmed virus cases.
A 20-year-old worker at the hotel was found this week to have been suffering the virus in early December.
However he didn’t cross over with the firefighter and doesn’t appear to have transmitted the virus to his close contacts.
To complicate matters, another positive case visited the Belrose Hotel bottle shop on December 17, at a time when the 20-year-old was working.
“We are again renewing our calls for wider spread testing around the Belrose Hotel to help us find any further links between how this virus got into the northern beaches community,” chief health officer Kerry Chant said.
Berejiklian urged NSW residents to keep getting tested to help inform decisions about New Year’s Eve and the first few weeks of January.
She promised a decision by Tuesday at the latest.
Meanwhile, new alerts have been issued for a number of venues in Sydney’s inner west, as well as in Centennial Park, North Sydney and the northern beaches.
