Under new COVID-19 restrictions, residents of the Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury-Bankstown council areas are not be allowed to leave their LGA, except for health and emergency workers.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the restrictions would last until July 30 at least.
However, there will be some exemptions, including for aged care and disability care workers who will be among those eligible to leave.
READ MORE: Major tightening of Sydney lockdown restrictions: Here's what you need to know
Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone said the community was "really confused and really frustrated".
"I've got residents that are heartbroken," Mr Carbone said.
"They don't know if they can get to work tomorrow, they don't know if they can feed their families.
"Fairfield has borne the brunt of this since the virus spread from the inner city. We've seen what one case has done to south-west Sydney.
"And it's unfortunate, I mean, workers out here were turning up in droves to get tested."
Workers able to leave must be tested every three days for COVID-19.
Ms Berejiklian said "non-critical retail" would also shut down at least until July 30, with a list of "critical" retail set to be provided.
"Obviously things like supermarkets, pharmacists, they will retain face-to-face retail," she said.
"But anything which is regarded as non-critical retail will not be able to have face-to-face."
Raft of new restrictions
The raft of new restrictions were announced yesterday, to take effect at midnight, after NSW recorded 111 new local cases of COVID-19.
There were 29 people active in the community for their entire infectious period and more than 82,000 tests conducted.
Ms Berejiklian described the amount of tests as "an outstanding result", however she said that the number of infections in the community is of great concern.
"We've prevented thousands and thousands of people being exposed to the virus and being infected, but what we haven't managed to do is really budge that stubborn number every day for the last few days where we need to quash this virus," Ms Berejiklian said.
"It is not good enough for us to tread water which is what we're doing now."
It has also been confirmed that a man from Sydney's southeast in his late 80s has died after contracting the virus.
Of the new cases, 59 are linked to known infections, while 52 are under investigation.
There are currently 75 COVID-19 cases in hospital, with 18 of those in intensive care, six requiring ventilation.
All construction in Sydney to halted from Monday
Additionally, all construction work, save for essential projects to supply electricity or water, will be halted until at least July 30.
Ms Berejiklian said any employer who forced their employee to attend a non-essential workplace would be hit with a $10,000 fine.
"We don't want employees being forced into the office," she said.
"We've said that all people who can work from home should be working from home and if you feel you are being forced to go into the office, your employer will be given that harsh penalty."
She said people in Greater Sydney should always have a mask, even if exercising with their household.
Carpooling has also been banned, while restrictions for regional NSW remain unchanged.
Ms Berejiklian denied the government had erred by imposing restrictions in stages.
"We were always hopeful that not only would we prevent the spread and quash the virus in that time," she said.
"We haven't succeeded in that and that is why on the basis of health advice and on the data provided to us, we're taking the extra steps."
The construction halt will not take effect until mid-Monday, giving operators the weekend and Monday morning to secure their sites and make sure everything is safe.
"We won't come down on you until you make sure that those sites are secure, so that public safety is always maintained, as well as the safety of those sites," Ms Berejiklian said.
Ms Berejiklian has warned that the lag in data compilation meant the impact of new restrictions for Greater Sydney would not be seen for up to a week.
"There is no doubt these additional restrictions will have a great impact on us being able to quash the virus, but we might not see it for a few days," she said.
"We need the community to appreciate that the data we see is often a reflection of what happened five to seven days ago."
READ MORE: Police to monitor all 'major arterial roads out of Sydney' in compliance crackdown
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant has said of the 111 new cases, 83 are from southwestern Sydney, and 60 from the Fairfield LGA.
"We are concerned about the spread into the Liverpool and the Canterbury-Bankstown adjacent area," she said.
Dr Chant listed Campbelltown, Camden, Lakemba, Fairfield, Liverpool, Bankstown, Cumberland, Mt Druitt, Rooty Hill, Bayside, the Sutherland Shire and the St George area as places of concern where increased testing needed to take place.
"I am also concerned particularly about Minto," she said.
"We have had a sewage detection in Minto so it is important that community absolutely responds."
Workplaces partly to blame for ongoing spread
Dr Chant said "some workplaces" were driving the ongoing spread of COVID-19, prompting the order to close non-essential retail after weeks in lockdown.
"What we're trying to do is reduce people's opportunities for interacting with others because once you get a workplace transmission, it is like a melting pot," Dr Chant said.
"Workplaces draw people from our vast geographical area and then you get transmission to your friends that you have driven into work with your carpool, you get transmission within the person you are sitting in proximity with or interact with."
Learn-from-home environments will remain in place, with teachers and childcare workers from Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool not exempted from the new LGA lock-in rules.
"I acknowledge that this is occurring rapidly and there may be other groups, but I want very much to reassure the community that healthcare staff can move, emergency services workers and aged care workers can move," Dr Chant said.
"They will be subject to the three-day swabs and if anyone has got any symptoms, do not attend work."
She re-emphasised that nobody with symptoms of COVID-19 should go to a pharmacy, which have emerged as regular exposure sites.
"If you have symptoms of COVID, do not go anywhere other than to a testing station," she said.
"If you need urgent care, seek medical care. Ring ahead so that you're being given the correct arrangements.
"I do want to just say, do not ever be concerned about, if you do have COVID symptoms, seeking critical care or essential care.
"Our health system has got processes for dealing with that and the last thing I would want to see is someone with chest pain or other health conditions not seeking care."
Rural NSW on high alert
Regional NSW has been warned to be on alert despite the lack of any new restrictions.
Three of today's new cases had travelled to Molong in the state's Central West yesterday before being aware they had the virus.
"Unfortunately, those people had also worked in northern NSW on July 15, and we will be releasing any information that is relevant about that," Dr Chant said.
"But it does highlight that all regional communities should be on alert."
More than 160 fined for public health order breaches
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Worboys said 162 personal infringement notices had been issued in the past 24 hours.
"What it means is that millions of people right across this state that are doing absolutely the right thing, are being let down by a small minority of people that continue to be irresponsible," he said.
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Deputy Commissioner Worboys said people would have to change their behaviour, and warned that the "tempo" of the police response to the outbreak would increase throughout Sydney and regional NSW.
He said an emergency response plan was being prepared for the newly locked-in Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool LGAs.
The plan would ensure nobody in those communities had to do without the things they needed for the next two weeks of harsher restrictions.
Sydney Mayor slams vaccine rollout
Sydney's Lord Mayor Clover Moore has slammed Australia's vaccine rollout, saying that the federal government "should have acquired and provided" more doses by this point in the pandemic.
Ms Moore said that Sydney was only just "coming back to life again" when the recent outbreak struck, and that it's too soon to tell what the financial impact of the city's second lockdown will be.
READ MORE: Tell 9News what you think about the big issues
"We were just beginning to have got through it and bringing the city back to life again," she said on Weekend Today.
"You know, the global city of Australia that's so important about the state and federal economy.
"The federal government should have had that vaccine ready… they should have acquired the vaccine and provided it, and should have run on a really effective campaign about how important it was that everyone got vaccinated. And that did not happen."
Ms Moore said that during last year's outbreak in NSW, the city lost $7 billion, and that this year, the cost could potentially be much higher without another JobKeeper package.
"It's really hard to assess because we don't know how long it's going to go on but what we do know is that pre-COVID the City of Sydney was generating economic activity for the nation and the state of about $130 billion," she said.
READ MORE: Victoria records 19 new COVID-19 cases on day two of lockdown
"We know last year cost us about $7 billion. So we don't know what this is going to cost.
"I think JobKeeper is something that really needs to be reinstated."
The only way out of the crisis is to just "get on with it" and adhere to the health advice, Ms Moore added.
"We shouldn't be going through this again and now we are and it's harder," she said.
"We just have to get on with it, it is what it is, and we have to deal with it and that's what I think is so hard.
"We have to find the health advice and we have to hope and pray that the federal government will at last get its act together and get that vaccine out to us."
READ MORE: New exposure sites issued with venues now stretching beyond Sydney and into the Hunter Region and Wollongong
NSW recorded 97 locally acquired cases of COVID-19 yesterday, with almost 30 active in the community throughout their entire infectious period.
