The news nobody wanted to hear (except perhaps Pharmaceutical giants): 29 new active cases in the NSW community.

Will NSW get desperate enough to try cheap drugs with low risks, mass production and promising results? It's winter and the Delta variant is spreading. Contact tracing is rapidly being outpaced. The number of close contacts doubled overnight to 14,000.

What have they got to lose?

NSW reported 44 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases, 29 of those were in the community while infectious and the number of close contacts has doubled from 7000 to 14,000 in the past 24 hours.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the lockdown was likely to be extended beyond Friday, July 16, unless there was a "dramatic turnaround" in coming days.