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Speaking on ABC News, Australian Medical Association (AMA) vice president Stephen Parnis said he had been “concerned for a while” about the situation in Greater Sydney – where a slate of harder restrictions will come into effect tomorrow.

“It seems that if you are reacting after the virus has done something, you’re already too late. You really need to try and get in ahead of it,” Dr Parnis said.

“The main concern I have with Sydney’s lockdown is that it is patchy. You can’t effectively lock down, isolate, across the greater metro area if you are treating local government areas like a patchwork quilt. The virus does not respect municipal boundaries.”

Dr Parnis added that he “would have hoped the NSW Government would have learned” from Melbourne’s experience last year, albeit with a much less infectious strain of the virus.

“That said, the direction is in the right one and clearly we need rates of vaccination that are so much more higher than where we are at the moment before you can contemplate lifting these things,” he said.

“So, again, I’m deeply concerned when the NSW Premier starts talking about lifting restrictions on a day when numbers are dangerously high.”

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University of Melbourne professor of mathematical biology, James McCaw, has warned that if case numbers in NSW aren't reduced, "stronger social measures and stronger versions of lockdowns rather than weaker" will be needed even once the state's eligible population reaches 70 per cent fully vaccinated.

Professor McCaw, who was involved in the Doherty Institute modelling that underpins Australia's path out of lockdown, told The Guardian that NSW was "clearly" not in the situation that the modelling anticipates when Australia reaches 70 per cent.

"It is absolutely the case, if we want to manage the spread of virus once we have high vaccine coverage, we need those test, trace, isolation and quarantine measures to be working effectively, and at high caseloads the public health units are under a lot of stress and obviously those things are not working optimally," he said.

"They are just not as effective [and so] obviously it's harder to control the spread of the virus, so something else has to help and what the other thing is, is stronger social measures and stronger versions of lockdowns rather than weaker.

"Therefore NSW needs to work to continue to reduce those case numbers and get the outbreak under control. There is a very, very clear and coherent relationship between the targets Doherty puts forward and the response required by NSW to help us get there."

AMA vice president Stephen Parnis echoed a similar sentiment on ABC News this morning, saying that "we cannot achieve, with vaccination alone, the protection of the entire community that we would like, and that we have seen with infectious diseases such as measles over the years".

HSC exams could be held outdoors and school nurses tasked with rolling out Covid-19 vaccines to students under proposals to get pupils safely back to school in NSW, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

The measures have been mapped out to ensure all Year 12 students can sit their final exams properly, as authorities consider "all contingencies for the HSC to go ahead".

"The government is committed to running the Higher School Certificate," a spokesman told the paper.

"It is the fairest way for students across the state to complete their 13 years of schooling."

Other options being considered for the HSC – now scheduled for the end of October – include clearing schools of other pupils to give Year 12 students space to safely gather for the exams.

There are also contingencies to again postpone the final exams in order for NSW to reach safe levels of vaccinated students.

You can read the full story at The Sunday Telegraph.

NSW isn't the only state nervous about rising case numbers – a fear in Victoria that's now even greater after thousands of "freedom" protesters descended on the Melbourne CBD yesterday.

With fears over people delaying tests, growing exposure site lists and growth in the mystery cases, Dr Parnis said "the trajectory is heading in the wrong direction" in Victoria.

"We know from past experience that when the numbers increase, that translates through to more sick people, more hospital presentations," he said.

"And already in Melbourne we've seen an impact with hundreds of exposure sites, lots of people – over 10,000 to 15,000 in isolation, and that includes a significant amount of health workers. It's putting pressure on health services.

"And then, of course, we saw these protests yesterday, which are demoralising because people are doing the exact opposite of what they purport to do, which is improve people's freedoms. They actually make it worse for everyone."

Millions of NSW residents are on edge ahead of Premier Gladys Berejiklian's daily Covid-19 update, after the state reported a record-breaking 825 new cases yesterday.

Speaking on ABC News this morning, Australian Medical Association (AMA) vice president Stephen Parnis said he had been “concerned for a while” about the situation in Greater Sydney – where a slate of harder restrictions will come into effect tomorrow.

“It seems that if you are reacting after the virus has done something, you’re already too late. You really need to try and get in ahead of it,” Dr Parnis said.

Dr Parnis added that he “would have hoped the NSW Government would have learned” from Melbourne’s experience last year, albeit with a much less infectious strain of the virus.

“So, again, I’m deeply concerned when the NSW Premier starts talking about lifting restrictions on a day when numbers are dangerously high.”