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An alarming 91 new venues from across NSW have been added to the state's skyrocketing exposure sites list, including more than a dozen busy supermarkets across Sydney. 

Twenty two grocery stores extending from the Hunter Region to the Illawarra have been placed on alert as fears grow the highly infectious Delta outbreak will continue to spread its tentacles into regional towns. 

More than 25 of the new sites are outside of the state's capital city, including 16 venues in Byron Bay where an infected Sydney traveller is feared to have spread the virus.

There were also five new venue alerts in Dubbo, in the state's west, as NSW recorded a further 344 locally-acquired cases on Wednesday and the deaths of two men aged in their 30s and 90s.

A worrying 91 new venues have been added to NSW's exposure sites list as Sydney's outbreak seeps into the regions (pictured, a masked woman ventures out in Sydney's locked-down southwest suburbs)

The venues include more than a dozen supermarket stores across Sydney, with the Bankstown Woolworths (pictured) being listed with 17 exposure times 

Tim Koerstz Pharmacy (pictured) is one of the five new venue of concern in Dubbo - which is now also in lockdown

The new Dubbo sites are believed to be linked to a man from the outback town of Walgett in the state's north-west, whose unexpected infection will plunge the area into lockdown from 7pm on Wednesday. 

In the Hunter region, a popular café and a vape shop have been placed on alert, while further south hundreds of passengers who travelled on nine buses across Sydney have also been declared close contacts. 

In total, 17 public transport routes stretching across all corners of the city have been affected after a bus driver worked multiple trips over several days while infectious. 

While Sydney's Covid-ravaged west and southwestern suburbs remain the major cause for concern for contact tracers, spot fires of transmission are worryingly developing in many parts of regional NSW.

Among the long list of exposure sites flagged in the Northern NSW town of Byron Bay was the iconic General Store, with anyone who attended on August 4 between 7.45am to 8.15am considered a close contact and urged to immediately get tested and self isolate for 14 days, regardless of the result.

Shoppers who visited Byron Bay Woolworths on August 7 from 12.45pm to 1.45pm are also close contacts, along with diners at a host of local cafes in Byron Bay and the nearby Bangalow area.

The flood of alerts in the region are linked to Zoran Radovanovic, 52, who drove to the popular beachside community from Sydney's eastern suburbs with his two teenage daughters at the end of July to look at a real estate property - a loophole which is allowed despite Greater Sydney's strict lockdown.

 The Rose Bay man allegedly repeatedly refused to cooperate with the state's contact tracers and was charged with breaching public health orders.

An eerily quiet Sydney Opera House is seen on Wednesday (pictured) with 80 per cent of people across NSW now living under lockdown

The majority of casual exposure sites are still in Sydney's west and south-west (pictured, Cabramatta on Wednesday)

With major concerns the man who later checked himself into Lismore Base Hospital may have spread the virus undetected across the region, the Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore and Ballina Shire Local Government Areas were all sent into lockdown from 6pm August 9 until August 17.

The development comes as Premier Gladys Berejiklian also ordered Dubbo into a snap week-long lockdown from 1pm Wednesday after two cases were found in the regional town. 

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said the cases were a young child and a woman in her 40s. 

'It is critical that the lockdown is complied with in Dubbo, and even though it comes in to place at 1pm today, we are asking people to make those decisions and act in a way as if it is in place at the moment,' Dr Chant said.

The five new Covid exposure sites in Dubbo include the Don Crosby Veterinary Surgery, the Harvest Cafe, Ashcrofts IGA supermarket, Tim Koerstz Pharmacy and the Covid Safe Clinic. 

Health officials also found 14 new cases in the Hunter-New England area, with Ms Berejiklian warning the continuing spread of cases meant it was unlikely eight LGAs in the region would be released from lockdown on time later this week. 

The Harvest Cafe in Dubbo (pictured) was flagged as Covid exposure site after two cases were recorded in the regional town with another man testing positive in Walgett

Health authorities also sent out a public health alert for Don Crosby Vets in Dubbo (pictured) 

'The Hunter doesn't look like it will come out of lockdown later this week - however we will wait on health advice,' she said. 

As cases in the Hunter region continue to climb, two Newcastle venues - Charlestown Super Vape store and Boho Black Café - have been identified as close contact sites after they were visited by positive cases last week. 

No new cases though were found in the Armidale, Tamworth or Northern Rivers areas of northern NSW - sparking hope those LGAs could soon be released from lockdown. 

In a worrying development, Wollongong, Kiama, and Shellharbour venues, including a Coles and Dan Murphy's, were among the dozens of new casual contact sites added on Wednesday, igniting fears Sydney's outbreak may also be seeping south.  

However, the majority of sites were located in Sydney's southwest and western Covid hotspots, and comprised of several supermarkets and chemists. 

They include Woolworths stores in Punchbowl, Revesby, Winston Hills, Minto, Lidcombe, Lakemba, and Fairfield, as well as Coles in Casula, Mount Druitt, Revesby and Rhodes.

Branches of the supermarket giants were also impacted in Newcastle, the Central Coast, Shellharbour, and Kiama.  

Highlighting the concentration of cases in the Cantebury-Bankstown LGA, a Woolworths store in Bankstown has 17 different exposure time listings across 12 days. 

The 344 new locally-acquired cases came as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned more LGAs in Sydney's south and inner-west could face tighter lockdown measures

Ms Berejiklian meanwhile repeated her intention to consider ease social distancing restrictions as soon as September in Sydney suburbs where case numbers are low but vaccination rates are high. 

'Please note that they are two different things - lockdown now, plus opportunities to live life differently in September and October, is very different to what life looks like at 70 percent,' she said.

The NSW premier said restrictions would remain but that once a 'low risk' community reached 80 percent double vaccination, the focus of the rules would change and Covid could be treated more like the flu rather than a 'sinister virus'.

Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore, and Ballina Shire were placed into a snap seven-day lockdown on Monday, which is due to lift on August 17 (pictured, a queue for Covid-19 testing at Byron Bay Hospital)

Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned the city's Delta outbreak is threatening to move back eastwards after an increase in cases in the Bayside and Inner-West areas (pictured, a drive-through testing centre in Ashfield on Wednesday)

'That means that we no longer focus on the number of cases, we focus on the number of hospitalisations,' she said.

'When you have such high rates of vaccination, people can live more freely and we can focus on keeping people out of hospital rather than counting cases.

'It's a bit premature now but in a few weeks we'll have a better idea of what September and October looks like because we will be able to see what a consistent rate of vaccination looks like.'

Ms Berejiklian used the exchange to urge people in Greater Sydney to more widely embrace vaccination.

'Please get vaccinated because there could be opportunities in September and October for us to say to the community, if you are vaccinated you might be able to do a certain level of activity which you can't now.

'They are conversations we are starting to have. They will be based on health advice.'