She urged people not to panic buy and stressed there was no curfew so people did not need to rush out to stock up on provisions.

Anyone in regional NSW who has been in Greater Sydney since June 21 must also stay at home and isolate in order to stop the virus from spreading through the regions.

Dr Chant said strict measures need to be applied if NSW was to get the outbreak under control.

She said,despite contact tracing and testing numbers being high,by the time health tracers are locating infected people,a number have already been infectious in the community.

“The restrictions need to be applied absolutely and it’s critical that we all comply with them if we are going to achieve that no community transmission,” Dr Chant said.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said all members of the crisis cabinet supported the lockdown decision.

He said seeing the number of cases being written up on a board in the health conference room on Saturday morning gave a real sense of “the immanency and urgency that we’re facing.”

Mr Hazzard also foreshadowed a health order which will set out to employers a requirement that employees should work from home if possible.

“Employees,if possible,should be working from home. That’s a clear requirement to stop the movement around our communities,” he said.

“So again,I apologise to the business sector,but I think we’ve found that we can be extremely productive with our workers working at home and certainly to allow them to do that will minimise at least one group of people from moving around unnecessarily.”

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