COVID-19 Testing sites have been shutting down to process the back-log of tests.
Royal North Shore Hospital posted to Facebook on Thursday that they would be “temporarily closed… Until further notice”.
“The decision was made to ease pressure on pathology labs and allow them to clear a backlog of swabs”
“Since the start of the holiday period, Northern Sydney Local Health District has been collecting 6000 swabs a day from across its clinics and hospital operations”
“In the weeks preceding this, around 1000 specimens a day were collected”
They apologied to the community but reassured healthcare workers that they could still be swabbed at any of their clinics.
Both East Sydney Arts Centre and Rushcutters Bay clinics are also closed “until further notice”
To ease pressure on further sites, Northern Sydney Health District have reduced hours at the clinics at Ryde Hospital, Hornsby Hospital, Mona Vale Hospital and Brookvale Community Health Centre on Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, Willoughby Leisure Centre’s testing site had to shut down after it simply ran out of tests.
Willoughby City Councillor Nic Wright told NCA Newswire that “the demand is out of control”. “People [are] looking for tests everywhere [and] any clinic that takes bookings is booked out in minutes”.
“This was entirely predictable, we knew the case numbers were going to be this high. We’re in this situation where we can’t keep up with the demand. People are obviously anxious and scared about what’s going on”.
On the 31st of December 2021, 21,151 cases were recorded in NSW. A significant increase from the 12,226 recorded the previous day.
NSW COVID-19 update – Friday 31 December 2021
In the 24-hour reporting period to 8pm last night:
– 95% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
– 93.6% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/31xWp1fJ73— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) December 30, 2021
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant suggested that although “21,150 cases [are] in the community, it’s likely the case numbers are higher than that”
“There is a lot of transmission of COVID-19 in our community and so the risk of transmission and acquiring COVID-19 is high”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s recent change to the definition of a close contact was a bid to “significantly change those who need to be going and getting in queues”.
Though it is still unclear if this will have a great effect, Morrison is urging people “If you don’t fulfil this definition of a close contact, then there is no need for you to be in that line”
