A Sydney primary school will be shut for cleaning after a student tested positive for the coronavirus.
Lane Cove West Public School in Sydney’s north will close on June 25 for deep cleaning after a year two student was confirmed to have COVID-19, the NSW Department of Health says.
“The school will be non-operational for the on-site attendance of staff and students to allow for contact tracing to occur,” the statement on Wednesday night said.
It came as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the damage caused to Victorian border towns such as Albury-Wodonga would deter any attempt to restrict movement between the states.
“For a community like Albury-Wodonga, they don’t see themselves as two separate towns, they see themselves as one community,” Berejiklian told ABC television on Wednesday.
“A hard border closure would be detrimental to a part of the country that doesn’t have cases. We’re not in the business of having hard border closures.”
Victoria on Wednesday confirmed another 20 cases of COVID-19 amid an outbreak in outer-suburban Melbourne, taking to 213 the number of diagnoses over the past 10 days.
NSW on Wednesday reported 10 new cases - all in hotel quarantine - from 13,278 tests.
Berejiklian has repeatedly criticised interstate travel restrictions and said she won’t agree to border closures with any of NSW’s neighbour states.
But she again urged against travel to Melbourne, particularly its six current COVID-19 hotspots: the local government areas of Hume, Casey, Brimbank, Moreland, Cardinia and Darebin.
Residents of those hotspots should not be moving around the community, the premier said, and NSW businesses should deny service to anyone from outer-suburban Melbourne.
She also implored NSW residents to avoid visiting Melbourne altogether.
But Berejiklian said she was confident her Victorian counterparts would get the outbreak under control before drastic measures were required.
About 3159 COVID-19 cases have been reported in NSW to date, with none in intensive care.
Berejiklian again encouraged NSW residents to seek testing if they felt unwell.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt this week said Australia’s international borders would remain closed for “a very significant” amount of time as global coronavirus infection rates accelerate, potentially until a vaccine is secured.
The number of coronavirus infections around the world has exceeded 9.3 million.
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