Health district CEO Scott McLachlan confirms Orange COVID-19 cases were not in community

Mr McLachlan said the three new Orange cases from 8pm Wednesday are in isolation and have not been in the community while infectious.

He said there are also two people with COVID-19 who are being treated at Orange Hospital and 1062 people were tested in Orange on Wednesday.

With the region's stay at home orders extended another two weeks to September 10, Mr McLachlan said it is important to for people with minor symptoms to get tested and for people to get vaccinated if they have not done so.

"It will be challenging, we know that, there is a lot of support for everyone in place but it's also the window of time for us to stop COVID in our backyard," Mr McLachlan said.

"This is the time for us to know that the older people in our communities, the most precious people to us, our grandparents, our fathers our mothers, aunties and uncles are the most vulnerable to COVID.

"This is the time to protect our most vulnerable and our most loved community members, everything we do is to keep them safe."

However, he said testing rates across the health district have declined, and he is blaming the spread of misinformation on social media for vaccine hesitancy.

"I think think there's been a lot of misinformation around, some of the social media stories that the anti-vaxxer groups that come out and just spew lies, they tell absolute lies around the evidence of vaccinations, the effectiveness and honestly I wish they would just stop," Mr McLachlan said.

"I wish everyone could help them stop, because the concerns that are being created unnecessarily are the fear of getting vaccinated, it is so unyielding.

"I ask everyone to look at the information that's around, both AstraZeneca and Pfizer are very safe and effective vaccines, they're readily available, there's a lot of opportunity to get vaccinated.

"Please don't listen to some of the scare mongering and rumours on social media, the real information is that they're available, they're safe and effective and they the time is right now."

There are currently 389 people in the health district with COVID-19 and 309 of those people are in Dubbo. Five more people across the health district have also now recovered. There were 35 new cases as of 8pm Wednesday, most in the Dubbo area but there was one each in Parkes and Forbes and two in Bathurst.

The latest information comes as a person who did not know they were positive for COVID-19 attended Bathurst Hospital's Emergency Department on Wednesday night and a group of young people held an illegal party in Dubbo.

Currently 41 per cent of people with COVID-19 in the Health District are aged under 20, which is a decreasing figure, while 93 per cent are aged under 50.

As of Thursday afternoon there were 110 venues of concern in the health district and contact tracers are continuing to update that information.

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