The NSW Premier has assured the state that lockdown isn’t on the cards for any of the state, with intentions to move through the ongoing wave of the virus operating under current restrictions. 

Up to 8pm yesterday there were 347 new cases identified by PCR testing in the Western NSW Local Health District, with 18 of those cases being located in Western Plains shires. 

Of those cases, three were located in the Bogan Shire, one in Cobar, one in Coonamble, three in Gilgandra, one in the Lachlan, three in Narromine, one in Warren, and five in the Warrumbungles Shire. 

The NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said that while current restrictions have meant a lot of sacrifices throughout the pandemic, there are no intentions to go back to stay-at-home orders. 

“The best way through this pandemic is to push through,” Mr Perrottet said. 

“What we can’t have here in NSW and across the country are never ending lockdowns,” he said. 

Increasing attention is being drawn to the capacity of the health system as just like with the Delta strain, the Omicron variant is seeing increasing admissions to hospitals as case numbers continue to stay above the originally predicted 25,000 per day in NSW. 

Lung Specialist Dr Lucy Morgan said that practical solutions will be needed to ensure that hospitals can continue. 

“One of the best things we can do is think outside of the box about ways to staff our hospitals and provide care for our patients from people who have not previously delivered that care,” Dr Morgan. 



One of the solutions to expand the pool of frontline staff available is to bring health staff from across the industry to a caring role, including from administration, teaching, and training roles, back into hospital wards. 

Both Mr Perrottet and Dr Morgan emphasised the importance of vaccination as both a tool to get through the Omicron strain and a way of decreasing hospital admission. 

“Fifty per cent of people in the ICU aren’t vaccinated…the numbers don’t lie,” Mr Perrottet said. 

“Boosters in combination with washing our hands and physical distancing remain a very very important part of our fight against Covid and about keeping our hospitals running,” Dr Morgan said. 

“Omicron is still a potentially very severe virus and if we’re going to keep going, we need to do everything as individuals to keep our hospitals ticking over,” Dr Morgan said. 

Vaccination opportunities are available at the WNSWLHD site.