New South Wales is preparing to ramp up coronavirus testing in an attempt to eliminate the virus in the state. NSW Health are reportedly working on a plan to test all 5.3 million Sydneysiders. State Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant is set to meet with private sector labs to discuss capacity and work out a testing strategy.
“Without patting ourselves on the back, we got to testing really early and have got one of the highest testing rates around the world,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian shared on Sunrise this morning.
“If you look at New South Wales and the proportion of tests we’ve done for our population, it’s one of the highest in the world and that’s really helped us stop the spread.”
“We have capacity to do 4,500 – 5,000 tests a day at the moment and we’re hoping to ramp that up,” the Premier added. “In the next few weeks we’ll broaden that out even more to capture a larger proportion of the population.”
Last week, NSW Health confirmed that they were expanding testing for mild coronavirus symptoms for those that live in virus hotspots. The suburbs eligible for testing include Blacktown, Cumberland, Westmead, the Inner West, Liverpool, Penrith, Randwick, Ryde, Waverley and Woollahra.
In Bondi — the area with the highest number of confirmed cases in the state, a pop-up, drive-through clinic was opened.
As it stands there have been 2,974 confirmed cases of coronavirus in NSW, thankfully, the curve is flattening and the number of new infections are dropping everyday.
