NSW has reached a major milestone in the fight against COVID-19, with more than one million tests carried out in NSW since January 2020.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the people of NSW should be proud of this achievement and thanked the community for doing their part to help keep NSW COVID-safe.
“NSW has one of the highest COVID-19 testing rates in the world and reaching one million tests already is an incredible result,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“I want to thank everyone in NSW who has come forward and been tested. This needs to continue – if you have the mildest of symptoms it is so important you come forward and get tested.
“If you have already been tested and were negative but develop symptoms again, you need to come forward and get tested again.”
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said high testing numbers is critical to finding new cases and controlling the spread of COVID-19.
A total of 1,007,662 tests have been done since testing began, including 18,524 over the past 24 hours.
“NSW Health Pathology have been the quiet achievers during the pandemic, working incredibly hard behind the scenes, doing almost 60 per cent of these tests, averaging 7500 a day,” Mr Hazzard said.
“They’ve also received around 290,000 registrations for their pioneering SMS Results Service that has halved the average waiting time for negative results.”
Mr Hazzard warned that the virus is likely circulating among people in the community with mild symptoms and the risk of outbreaks and a resurgence of cases remains.
“While this is a fantastic response from the community, we must keep up the fight against COVID-19 and not allow complacency to set in.”
