Update on testing required for those travelling for work

The Premier has announced that from midnight tonight if you live in or are staying in Greater Sydney including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour, you must have a COVID-19 test in the 7 days before entering a premise which is 50km or more outside Greater Sydney. Once the order is place you will need to provide information, including proof of address and proof of being tested for COVID-19 if asked by police, your manager or the occupier of the premises in which you work. An SMS text message or email from the testing organisation can be evidence that a test has been taken.

The Minister for Health has made it clear that they understand that it will take a little time for us to get organised. For this reason an exemption is in place which means people leaving the Greater Sydney +50km area have until midnight Sunday 18 July to be tested provided they take reasonable steps to be tested before this date.

If you have a shift in the next couple of days attend as normal as it’s critical we continue to keep our essential services running while we operationalise testing.

You can read more about the introduction of testing on the NSW Health website and view a map of the 50km zone around Greater Sydney including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour local government areas.

Tests not required for transiting only

The rolling 7 day tests are only required if a person is a resident of Greater Sydney or has stayed in Greater Sydney in temporary accommodation. If you are simply travelling into and out of the Greater Sydney area for work you are not required to be tested every 7 days.

Fairfield LGA residents and tests

Today’s announcement also included the news that if you live in or are staying in the Fairfield local government area but you work outside this area, you must have a COVID-19 test once every 72 hours (or 3 days) in order to be allowed to enter a workplace. More information on how we can support our people to get tested will be shared soon. In the meantime, please review the list of suburbs in the Fairfield local government area. An exemption is in place which means people within the Fairfield LGA have until midnight Friday 16 July to be tested provided they take reasonable steps to be tested before this date. If you have a shift in the next couple of days attend as normal as it’s critical we continue to keep our essential services running while we operationalise testing.

How to get tested – supporting you

In the lead up to the Public Health Order coming into place from 12.01am tonight and over the next day or so the COVID-19 Taskforce are working across government and with our Transport teams to operationalise this, including pop up testing sites. You can expect to hear more on this shortly. You can also visit any of the established COVID-19 testing locations.

Surveillance COVID testing VS normal testing and isolation

Testing of workers who are well and not displaying symptoms is called surveillance testing. In this situation where workers are well they are not required to self-isolate and wait for the test result. The idea is to identify the presence of COVID early even if the worker is not showing symptoms. This means if you are well and get tested you do not need to isolate until you receive the result.

Anyone who is unwell should not be coming to work and should get tested which is when they do need to self-isolate.