WATCH LIVE: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian provides COVID update at Saturday press conference

Fears are growing that Sydney’s COVID-19 restrictions could be extended as the city and its surrounds pass the halfway point of its 14-day hard lockdown.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Saturday confirmed the state had recorded 35 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Friday from more than 56,000 tests processed.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian will hold a press conference at 11am on Saturday morning. You can watch it LIVE in the video player below as soon as its available.

Nine of those were infectious in the community, prompting concerns the lockdown rules imposed on Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Wollongong will be extended beyond July 9.

But Berejiklian says “the green shoots are there”.

NSW Police have issued 75 infringements in 24 hours to people failing to adhere to lockdown rules. Credit: AAP

“While as predicted the number of cases is going up, we are seeing a greater proportion of those cases inisolation, which is exactly what we want to see,” she told reporters.

Thirty-five possible exposure sites were identified by NSW Health on Friday evening after the state recorded its highest number of daily COVID-19 cases since the first wave in 2020 – 31 infections.

Berejiklian on Friday said she was relieved local case numbers had not significantly spiked in recent days, but authorities wanted to see a rise in the proportion of new cases already in isolation.

“I will say that the next few days are critical,” she told reporters, “come early next week we do want to see that tide turned.”

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant on Friday refused to be drawn on whether she would advise that the lockdown be extended, saying she would be looking closely at the number of new cases which were in isolation and at unlinked chains of transmission.