NSW recorded 29 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night. This includes 17 cases that were announced on Friday morning.

The concern from NSW Health is the rapid spread of the Delta variant with Premier Gladys Berejiklian saying "it is like no other that we have seen".

There have been 82 locally acquired cases since 16 June 2021, when the index case for the Bondi cluster, a driver who transported international flight crew, was reported. A total of 80 cases are now linked to the Bondi cluster.

At the moment NSW Health is playing catch-up with NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant saying that by the time they get to investigate some cases the virus has already been on-transmitted.

12 of the 29 cases were in isolation during their infectious period. This means that each case not in isolation will generate new exposure venues.

The Premier yesterday issued a 'Stay At Home' order for four local government areas, they are the City of Sydney, Randwick, Woollahra and Waverly. This includes people that work in the LGA's but live outside them.

Three other local government areas, Bayside, Inner West, Canada Bay have been asked to not travel outside the Sydney area.

"Can I stress that if you live in those 7 local government areas that you do not leave Sydney under any circumstances, the Premier said, "We do not want this virus transmitting in our regions, we do not want this virus to spread beyond the suburbs and local government areas where it is particularly circulating."

"This is the scariest time that Sydney and NSW has been in since the pandemic."

The concern for people living in regional NSW is the exodus of Sydney residents due to the start of school holidays. It only takes one person who was in a Sydney hotspot location to travel to the Northern Rivers and become ill.

As this new COVID outbreak is evolving at such a rapid rate, a crisis cabinet meeting will be held today so the Government can advise the community if they will take any further action.

"I am putting everyone on notice that we may need to extend that during the course of the day or tomorrow based on Health advice and the cabinet crisis meeting", the Premier added, "We will not hesitate to adopt that advice" (from NSW Health authorities).