New South Wales has recorded 13 cases of Covid-19 community transmission overnight but Premier Gladys Berejiklian has stopped short of sending Sydney into a hard lockdown.
Ms Berejiklian said health officials had found 10 local cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday night - nine of which had already been announced.
Since that cut-off though, she said an additional 13 infections had been found in the community - eight of whom were at the same party.
From 4pm on Wednesday, household gatherings will be limited to five visitors and masks will be compulsory in all all indoor non-residential settings including workplaces.
Drinking while standing at indoor venues will also be banned once again and those who live and work in seven hotspot suburbs will not be allowed to leave metropolitan Sydney unless they have an essential reason.
A worker directs traffic along Campbell Parade at the Bondi Beach drive-through Covid-19 Clinic on Wednesday.
The one person per four square metre rule will also come back into force.
Queensland earlier on Wednesday morning slammed its borders shut to people travelling from Sydney's hotspots after the coronavirus outbreak in Bondi Junction skyrocketed to 21 cases on Tuesday.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed in a press conference on Wednesday morning that anyone who had been in the seven Sydney councils designated as high-risk will be forced to enter hotel quarantine from 1am Thursday.
Those areas include the City of Sydney, Waverley, Woollahra, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West and Randwick - about 782,000 residents.
'We cannot afford to have this Delta variant out in the community,' Palaszczuk said as the state recorded another case transmitted in hotel quarantine.
'We have serious concerns. We will be easing restrictions across Queensland this weekend but we cannot have the Delta variant out in our community.
She said Queensland will be following Victoria's lead overnight by banning anyone entering from the seven-exposed areas.
'We're focusing on those council areas at the moment but this advice could change, that's dependent on what we see in the next few days.'
There were no community transmissions of the virus recorded in Queensland overnight.
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young says the extreme risk of the Delta variant has forced the state to immediately introduce the measures. The state recorded one new case of the variant overnight.
'The risk is so much higher now than it was only a year ago,' she said.
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