Operation STAY AT HOME comes to Molong

Operation STAY AT HOME has commenced across all of New South Wales including Molong.

On Tuesday morning local and Central West Police District police established an RBT checkpoint adjacent to the Molong Recreation Ground. The checkpopint was also engaged in checking licences to ensure compliance and re-enforce the stay at home message.

A permit system to enter regional NSW from Greater Sydney local government areas will be introduced this Saturday. The Molong checkpoint is clearly designed to detect unauthorised travel from Dubbo and local government areas further West which have been listed as “areas of concern”.

Up to 8pm on Monday there were 18 new cases Covid-19 identified in our Western NSW Local Health District. Sixteen were in Dubbo and two in Bourke.

Up to 8pm on Monday there were 116 active cases of Covid-19 in the LHD – 107 in Dubbo, four in Walgett, three in Mudgee, and two in Bourke. There are now 65 venues of concern that have been identified across WNSWLHD, 56 of these are in Dubbo, four are in Mudgee, two are in Orange, two are in Bathurst and one is in Walgett. The Orange venues include the Byng Street Cafe on Sunday, August 8 from 12.50pm to 1.10pm and the Village Bakehouse on Sunday, August 8, from 10:50am to 12:10pm.

Western NSWLHD’s Scott McLachlan is reported as saying “We’re not clear on if that was a traveller or who it is. Our contact tracing teams have obviously identified someone who was in those facilities. There’s certainly not an active case that’s in Orange.”

Virus fragments have been detected in sewage samples taken from Bourke and Parkes on Friday 13 August, Walgett on Thursday 12 August, Bathurst, Parkes and Dubbo on Wednesday 11 August, and Bourke on Tuesday 10 August.

The lockdown “stay at home” rules allow you to leave home with “a reasonable excuse” i.e. if you need to
• obtain food or other goods and services locally
• leave home to go to work if
– you cannot reasonably work from home and
– the business is allowed to be open
• leave home for education if it is not possible to do it at home
• exercise and take outdoor recreation within your local government area or, if you need to cross into another local government area, stay within 5km of your home
• go out for medical or caring reasons, including obtaining a COVID-19 vaccination.
You can travel up to 5kms from your home, even if it takes you outside your LGA. You can also travel anywhere within your LGA. If you need to buy essential goods and services that are not available locally, you may travel beyond your LGA or further than 5kms.
Increased fines up to $5,000 have been introduced for Public Health Order breaches. Please stay at home unless you need to leave for an essential reason. If you must leave home, stay within your local area.

Member for Orange Philip Donato MP on Monday urged the communities in the Orange electorate and broader Regional NSW to exercise COVID-vigilance and adhere to health order restrictions as country NSW endures lockdown.
“The highly infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 has spread beyond the Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong regions, and now propagating in some rural and regional communities,” Mr Donato said.

“Cases of COVID-19 have now been detected throughout the Central West, including Bathurst and Mudgee. Traces of the virus have now also been identified in the sewage at other townships, which now includes Parkes. “The neighbouring electorate of Dubbo is of great concern as cases there escalate which, if uncontained, may detrimentally impact the broader region where an already under resourced medical service may struggle to cope with.

“The spread of Delta across the regions is in part due to failure of an element of society who disregard health order restrictions, which are in place to help prevent the spread of the virus”, Mr Donato said.

The current lockdown is not guaranteed to end as scheduled this weekend. A decision will be made by Friday.