Health officials want Hunter residents to stay away from Sydney's Northern Beaches, and Port Stephens Council is asking visitors from COVID-19 hot-spots to postpone Christmas travel.
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Sydney recorded 10 new cases of community transmission on Friday, bringing the latest outbreak to 28 cases in the past three days.
All states have introduced border restrictions, mostly 14-day quarantine, for anyone who has been to the Northern Beaches recently.
Victoria introduced a permit system at midnight for anyone entering from NSW and banned Northern Beaches residents altogether.
Western Australia is forcing all travellers from NSW into two weeks of quarantine.
Anyone travelling into NSW over Christmas now faces the prospect of being stuck here or facing weeks in quarantine to return home.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian urged Northern Beaches residents to stay at home unless they needed to leave for "absolutely necessary activity".
"If we don't get on top of it in the next few days, it could mean further restrictions," she said.
Port Stephens mayor Ryan Palmer said the council's holiday parks had been checking bookings and asking Northern Beaches residents to put off their trips.
"We request that all other accommodation providers do this as well," he said.
Lake Macquarie City Council said its holiday parks had been in contact with one reservation from the Northern Beaches who had confirmed they would not be visiting this weekend.
Hunter New England Health public health physician Dr David Durrheim confirmed on Friday that the virus had not been detected in the Hunter, but the Sydney outbreak had come at a "very, very tough time" so close to Christmas.
"The fact that we've seen a large number of cases already, the increase has been quite dramatic. The next three days will give us an idea of how broadly this cluster may spread," he said.
"People shouldn't be going to the Northern Beaches, and I think they should really rethink plans to go to Sydney.
"Certainly the Northern Beaches area, no one should be travelling from that area anywhere.
"They certainly shouldn't be coming up the highway."
Port Stephens MP Kate Washington said Northern Beaches residents should comply with health advice, but Port Stephens was otherwise "open for business".
"With the caveat that these things are changing very rapidly and it's going to be up to the government to put in place health orders that keep everyone safe," she said.
The Hunter's last brush with the coronavirus was in July, when a series of small outbreaks briefly closed several schools and pubs but did not lead to a fatality nor a widespread business shutdown.
Dr Durrheim said this experience should give people confidence that contact tracing and adherence to health guidelines would beat the latest outbreak.
"I think everybody had got into a rather joyful frame of mind where it looked as though the virus had been eliminated locally after a very long struggle. But we've done this very well before. We can do it again.
"People just need to be very sensible about crowding and getting close to people they don't know very well."
He said the situation in Sydney was likely to get worse before it improved.
"We know that there are probably going to be quite a few more. They will have contacts and will have travelled more broadly in Sydney, and maybe beyond."
NSW Health has identified the latest outbreak as a virus strain from the US.
"We know that the sewage surveillance in the Northern Beaches area hasn't signaled in the recent past, so that's some indication that this is something that's been introduced more recently," Dr Durrheim said.
"What we do know from the genetic finger-printing is that this is not a virus we've seen locally in the past.
"It appears to be an overseas virus.
"The big question is how has that got from an international port into the community.
"They're putting a lot of effort into making this link."
The virus that infected a Sydney airport driver ferrying overseas cabin crew members had a different genetic fingerprint to the Northern Beaches virus.
Ms Berejiklian announced on Friday that international airline crew would be placed in two designated quarantine hotels instead of being spread across "25 or 26" locations.
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IN THE NEWS:
Michael Parris
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
