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Scott Morrison told Sydney radio 2GB on Saturday that AstraZeneca has been "talked down for a long time" but the jabs were especially vital in Greater Sydney, which has entered its sixth week of lockdown restrictions.

On Friday, a national plan that would see border restrictions ease and city-wide lockdowns unlikely once Australia reached a full vaccination rate of 70 per cent was given in-principle approval by state and territory leaders.

Almost 19 per cent of Australians have been fully vaccinated.

The AstraZeneca jab was especially vital in Greater Sydney, and was needed for Australia more broadly to reach vaccination rates of 70 per cent and above, Mr Morrison said.

The vaccine rollout is plagued by problems, including complaints from doctors that they could be sued for administering COVID shots.

Delegates at the Australian Medical Association national conference on Saturday renewed calls for a no-fault vaccination indemnity scheme, promised by the federal government in June.

Dr Chris Moy told the conference the "frustrating" issue had compromised the rollout at critical stages, while another delegate said it had been a "Sco-mozzle".

AMA president Omar Khorshid criticised the handling of the recent COVID outbreak gripping NSW.

"The Delta outbreak in Sydney is our latest challenge and one that has been contributed to by complacency - complacency in the public health settings by government, complacency on waiting for vaccines on the part of the public, or just being a bit hesitant," Dr Khorshid said.

Meanwhile, the Australian Defence Force has sent another 300 troops to Sydney to help NSW Police with isolation and welfare checks. It came as NSW reported 210 new locally acquired virus cases on Saturday, with the source of 120 infections still being investigated.

In Queensland, the government on Saturday imposed a snap three-day lockdown as six new cases were reported.

NSW responded the the move by ordering people who had recently been in Queensland's 11 affected local government areas to stay at home.

According to the national plan agreed to on Friday, lockdowns and restrictions will be unlikely when Australia reaches a 70 per cent vaccination target.

There will also be exemptions from domestic travel restrictions for fully vaccinated residents while caps on returning Australians will be lifted.

People who have received both jabs will be allowed to travel overseas and travellers from countries with high vaccination rates will be given the green light to enter.

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham said he was confident the states would not decide to go it alone with future lockdowns once the desired vaccination rates had been reached.

But Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said quarantine remained a standout problem.

"Until we get the vaccination rates up and until we fix national quarantine, we'll continue to have announcements like we've had this morning with further restrictions on people's activity," he said.

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Authorities are grappling with Sydney residents hiding the presence of COVID-19 within their families for fear of losing incomes.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard says it is unclear whether a man in his 60s who died in the city's southwest had been tested for the virus beforehand. However his family were suffering symptoms.

The state recorded 210 new locally acquired cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Friday.

The man's death was the 14th of the current outbreak, which started in mid-June.

Mr Hazzard says a "terrible situation" has arisen where families, particularly in the southwest, are not coming forward when one of them falls ill.

Some people may be worried about their ability to go to work and earn an income if it's known there is a case in their household, he told reporters on Saturday.

At least 32 of the latest 210 people declared infected are known to have been so while in the community at least part of the time.

However the isolation status of a further 120 NSW cases is still under investigation.

Mr Hazzard declared the Delta variant "partial to younger people" with just under two thirds of the new cases (138) aged under 40.

Younger people are also being hospitalised, he said.

Of the 53 people in intensive care, six are in their 20s, four are in their 30s, one is in their 40s, 18 are in their 50s, 14 are in their 60s, nine are in their 70s and one is in their 80s.

"The older age brackets are actually having less numbers now, it is the younger people who are actually taking up places in our intensive care units," he said.

There are 203 people in hospital with COVID-19 in NSW. Twenty-seven are ventilated.

"By far the majority" of new cases continued to be diagnosed in Sydney's southwest and western Sydney, Mr Hazzard said.

The risk of COVID-positive patients coming into hospital and sending hundreds of health workers into isolation has led the state to suspend non-urgent elective surgery.

But Mr Hazzard said a number of procedures will be dealt with by the private health system instead.

Greater Sydney and surrounding regions are in lockdown until at least August 28, as health authorities battle to contain a outbreak of the virulent Delta strain.

Saturday marked the return to work for the construction sector after a fortnight-long enforced break, with work allowed to resume on non-occupied sites provided COVID-safe plans are in force.

But the sector cannot call on 68,000 workers - or 42 per cent of the workforce - from eight council areas worst-hit by the city's coronavirus outbreak.

The state's workplace safety regulator says construction sites should expect a visit to ensure they're complying with public health orders.

Meanwhile a threatened anti-lockdown protest in central Sydney failed to eventuate on Saturday.

Police set up an exclusion zone around the city between 9am and 3pm after also warning taxi and rideshare companies they would face fines of up to half a million dollars for transporting passengers into the CBD.

The zone stretched from the Bradfield Highway at Milsons Point north of the Harbour Bridge, to the City West Link at Lilyfield, to South Dowling St near Todman Ave at Zetland, and east to New South Head Rd near Ocean Ave at Edgecliff.

Police also had a high-visibility presence on all major roads leading into the city, while the Harbour Tunnel was closed.

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Up to a thousand police officers will be on duty to meet anyone considering attending an anti-lockdown protest in Sydney this weekend, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has warned.

Mr Fuller told a press conference on Friday that police had already detained 60 people from last week's protests and issued more than 200 infringement notices.

The commissioner said after monitoring online activity, police had to "expect there's going to be a protest".

"It appears it will not be in the same numbers. But ...(it) can still be violent," the commissioner said.

"Please don't come into Sydney tomorrow to protest. If you do, you will be met by up to 1000 police who will be ready to deal with you, whether that be via the health orders or other laws," Mr Fuller warned.

NSW Chief Medical Officer Kerry Chant said authorities were still investigating whether a COVID-positive person had attended last Saturday's protest, which saw thousands march through Sydney's CBD demonstrating against the state's lockdown laws.

NSW Police have confirmed a 35-year-old man from Granville, in Sydney's west, was caught more than 20km away at the city's central station by police targeting protesters, despite being subject to stay-at-home orders.

The man, who was fined $1000 dollars, was directed home and tested positive to COVID the next day.

"We're just working with police to ascertain whether that person did attend. The police did indicate they had turned the person around and they had given an infringement notice," Dr Chant told reporters.

"If that person would have attended the protest, they would have been infectious."

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said if the COVID-positive man had attended the rally, "he was effectively carrying a deadly weapon, he was carrying the virus".

Dr Chant said investigations were still underway to work out whether any of the new NSW cases could be linked to the protest.

"People may not be open that they attended the protest. I am not aware of any cases that have arisen from the protest but many people may choose not to disclose that," Dr Chant said.

"I am totally committed to the fact that we need to have low tolerance for where people are flagrantly breaking the rule - this is too much of a severe disease, too serious a situation to be in, to have people knowingly going out when they are positive," she told reporters.

A NSW Police strike force was set up following last week's protests with up to 20,000 tip-offs to Crime Stoppers about attendees, with photos and names sent to police.

On Friday Mr Fuller said police will be waiting for anyone planning to protest this weekend, and they had been given plenty of warnings.

Mr Hazzard had his own warning.

"You have to be crackers to go to that demonstration tomorrow because there will be a lot of people potentially with a deadly weapon, Delta virus," Mr Hazzard said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told would-be protesters, "your actions will hurt".

"Do not give those you love the most a death sentence," she said.

© AAP 2021

Image Credit: NSW Police Facebook