The Central West Police District is warning that anyone out on the roads during Operation Stay At Home will likely face random road-side licence checks.
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It's a message officers from Orange police were wanting to make clear on Tuesday as vehicles travelling into Molong were checked to ensure they weren't from Dubbo.
Central West Police District Commander Superintendent Steve Kentwell said that from Monday road-users would see an increased presence of police on main highways as well as back-roads to enforce compliance during the lockdown.
"It's really about just making sure that those people moving about our roads are actually doing it for a legitimate reason ... and to deter those that might be thinking of traveling from Dubbo or from greater metropolitan Sydney. You will be stopped and you will be fined," Superintendent Kentwell said.
"The warning part of it's really over now, and we really need to focus on compliance and stopping the virus spreading across regional NSW."
Police would also be patrolling the highway between Orange and Sydney to ensure no-one from the city tried to slip into town.
The police district commander said that while most people have been doing the right thing, recent weeks had seen some Sydney people caught in or on their way into the region.
"We're still getting some coming out of Sydney - whether it be on a bus, or whether it be in their own cars," Superintendent Kentwell said.
"We're throwing everything we can at this, not just here but [also] in Dubbo, Chiefly and Bathurst. Everywhere in western NSW, every district, is taking the same approach. We're looking at everyone... We're not going to get on top of this virus unless everyone complies with [public health orders]. It's very simple."
"Unfortunately, there are sections of the community that don't believe it's a serious thing and that's only probably because they haven't been affected by it, but it's real [and] it's deadly. So we really need to work together," the police commander added.
NSW Police launched Operation Stay At Home at 12.01am on Monday to enforce the public health order which saw the entire state locked down for at least a week from August 14.
The snap, state-wide lockdown which came into effect in Orange at 5pm Saturday, was announced after NSW's worst day of the COVID-19 pandemic to date.
The number of cases in the Western NSW Local Heath District similarly continues to worsen, with a staggering 67 percent of the region's 116 confirmed cases being Aboriginal. According to WNLHD, 40 percent of these are aged between 10-19 years old.
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