There have been nearly 4000 fines handed out by police across Western NSW for COVID-related breaches since figures were first kept track of.
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Speaking on Tuesday, Assistant Commissioner Geoff McKechnie of NSW Police revealed how many had seen a hit to their bank accounts.
"Since August 16 in the Western region we've issued 3908 PINs and Orange has received 129 and that whole Central Western area is 338," he said. The Central West area does not include Dubbo's figures.
While the cost of a PIN can vary, they can be upwards of $5000, such as those handed out to five of the six tradies who were escorted from Orange to Sydney for breaching COVID rules.
Fines can be for anything from a close contact or COVID-positive person who was ordered to stay at home failing to do so, to refusing to wear a mask when necessary.
And while the majority of fines across the west have been handed out in Dubbo, Mr McKechnie reminded the public that anyone has the potential to do the wrong thing.
"We've seen the bulk of those PINS obviously in Dubbo because that is where we've had the most COVID and most of those have been for people breaching the health orders from that illness perspective where they were actually ill or close contacts," Mr McKechnie said.
"Other areas where we haven't seen as much COVID, we haven't seen that level. The mask wearing is really good and we're not seeing (many fines) for that at all now. It really still is those odd people who want to flout the rules. Unfortunately some of them do still have COVID but they are getting few and far between."
In the past 24 hours, there were a little more than 20 PINs issued across the western region. The assistant commissioner was pleased to see the numbers start to decline.
"Maybe it is because we've been in this now for well over a month and we've worked our way through a group of people that may have been somewhat recalcitrant, and those messages are finally sinking in and people now are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel and more willing to abide by those rules," he said.
"But it could be for any number of reasons, we're just pleased that those PINs are down. We don't want to be issuing fines to people during this particularly difficult time."
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