Health authorities have regularly praised Fairfield for compliance with restrictions and high testing rates.

In Canterbury-Bankstown, the new epicentre of the virus’ spread, daily case numbers have also plateaued, although, unlike in Fairfield, they have plateaued at their peak. The local government area has recorded a seven-day average of between 67 and 70 cases for the past five days.

A month ago, Canterbury-Bankstown had only about 10 cases a day.

Cases are increasing at the quickest rate in the Penrith (a seven-day average of 21 cases was recorded on Tuesday, compared with two a week ago), Cumberland (41, compared with 28 a week ago) and Blacktown (27, up from 17) areas.

When viewing the graphs, it is important to note the Y-axis – which shows the number of cases– is scaled to show the shape of the curve and varies between local government areas (there is a version of the graphs set at the same scale included at the bottom of this article) and reflects seven-day case averages, not daily cases.

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For example, the graph for Hornsby is a straight line along the X-axis – a seven-day average of zero cases for the entire outbreak – although that does not mean it has not recorded any cases: the northern suburbs council area has actually recorded seven cases since June 26; they have just been spread out such that the seven-day average has remained at or close to zero.

The averages – designed to control for outlier high-case days – may not also show some local government areas where cases have increased significantly only in the past couple of days.

For example, Georges River, which the Premier previously flagged could be removed from the list of local government areas of concern if lower case rates are maintained, has a seven-day average of seven cases. The number is lower than in adjacent Bayside, which is not a local government area of concern.

However, Georges River, in Sydney’s south, recorded 12 new infections on Tuesday, including five with no known source.

On Wednesday, Ms Berejiklian said “unfortunately half of Georges River is doing well but the other half ... has seen an uptick” and cases would need to stabilise further before this is considered.

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