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Covid-ravaged Sydney is set to stay in a hard lockdown until Christmas with NSW on track to record as many as 3,000 cases a day, a leading health expert has warned. 

After eight weeks of stay-at-home restrictions the state reported 633 new locally acquired cases on Wednesday, smashing the previous daily record by 155 infections.

Burnet Institute Director Professor Brendan Crabb said it was clear the state's 'piecemeal' approach to locking down the city had not been effective.

Professor Crabb called for Premier Gladys Berejiklian to enforce a uniform lockdown for the whole of NSW by introducing a state-wide curfew, 5km travel restrictions for all residents and stricter rules around who is classed as an essential worker.

Pictured is a queue for Covid-19 vaccinations in Sydney on Wednesday. Burnet Institute Director Professor Brendan Crabb has called for Premier Gladys Berejiklian to introduce a uniform lockdown for the entire state to stop the spread of the Delta strain

'We are now at 600 cases a day. If we speak again in 30 days, it will be 3,000 to 4,000 cases,' he told the Today show.

Professor Crabb urged Ms Berejiklian to stop locking down some areas of Sydney harder than others and make the rules the same for everyone to stop transmission.

His plea was supported by the show's host, Karl Stefanovic, who said, 'I just want this to go away.'

'I think we need to draw a line and reset around a program of uniformity, where everything is the same for every person,' Professor Crabb said.

However, one of Australia's top virus experts, James McCaw, says the state's vaccination rate will be much higher in four weeks, which will help to drive down the rate of transmission in Sydney.

'My expectation is that the NSW situation will be far more stable and the government will be able to look at a relaxation of measures because of the high vaccination coverage,' he told ABC's AM show.

Professor Crab says confusion over the differing levels of lockdown is hurting NSW's fight against the virus. 

'The incremental, frankly piecemeal, approach hasn't worked. We have lockdowns scattered into different LGAs and then scattered by region - people are confused.

'[The premier should enforce] a 5km travel restriction from home, mandate masks for every person in the state and make very strict rules around what an authorised worker is.'

He added a curfew was needed 'to bed this [harder lockdown] down for the first few weeks'.

'I think we need to draw a line and reset around a program of uniformity, where everything is the same for every person,' Professor Crabb said

Even if case numbers then start to stabilise, Professor Crabb said it may be Christmas before Sydney is in a position to come out of lockdown.

'Let's assume by some miracle things turnaround, we at least keep the numbers level each day,' he said.

'The best outcome is lockdown until Christmas.'   

The R-rate is now 1.3, meaning every 10 people who catch the devastating respiratory illness will pass it on to another 13.

Fifty three per cent of NSW residents have had a single dose and at the current rate the state is expected to fully vaccinate 80 per cent of its eligible population by November 18.

Two pedestrians holding takeaway coffees at Bronte Beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs on Wednesday. Professor Crabb urged Ms Berejiklian to stop locking down some areas of Sydney harder than others and make the rules the same for everyone

The University of Melbourne professor, who advises the federal government on its coronavirus response, said the rate at which infections are picking up pace is 'deeply concerning'.

'It could go lower too. Our models show the possibility of increases and decreases, but I think it's more likely to be well over 1,000 and up to 2,000 within a month or so,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Using the 1.3 reproduction figure, NSW will see 2,278 daily cases on average by September 17, with more than 1,000 expected by September 2.

If the R-rate were to drop slightly to 1.2, a five-day rolling average by September 17 would be a slightly healthier 1,409.

An R-rate of 1.1 would see the average daily cases by the same date reach a far more manageable 836. 

Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Wednesday batted away questions about the need for a harsher lockdown, saying lack of compliance was the problem.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the worst was yet to come for Sydneysiders as the state recorded by far the highest daily rise in cases during the Covid-19 pandemic to date

She warned 'we haven't seen the worst of it' because every infected person was passing on the virus to 1.3 others.

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant also issued a sombre warning as she urged residents to stay home.

'I can't express enough my level of concern at these rising numbers of cases,' she said.

NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns said no-one wanted a stricter lockdown 'but the alternative is too grim to bear at this point'.

'We can't face a prospect of 2,000 daily cases. It would be too much of a stretch on our health system,' he told the ABC on Thursday.

Meanwhile, elective surgeries at nearly 30 private hospitals have been suspended so staff can be re-deployed to plug gaps in the public system and administer vaccines.

The state also recorded a record number of vaccinations in a single day.

Some 109,550 NSW residents received a jab on Tuesday, taking the vaccine coverage for people over 16 to 54 per cent (with at least one dose).

At the moment the R-rate is now 1.3, meaning every 10 people who catch the devastating respiratory illness will pass it on to another 13 (pictured, Bronte Beach in Sydney's east)

Vaccination hubs are popping up across western and southwest Sydney, as authorities try to get 530,000 Pfizer doses into the arms of under-40s in those areas in under three weeks.

Meanwhile, the virus has continued its spread in regional NSW, with the government undecided if the one week snap lockdown for the whole state will be extended.

Seventeen of the 23 new cases recorded in western NSW on Wednesday were in Dubbo, with the remainder in Mudgee, Narromine and Gilgandra.

There are now four others in the state's far west, with three in Wilcannia and one in Bourke.

The Dharriwaa Elders Group in Walgett - which Ms Berejiklian has said is 'of enormous concern' - is calling for more data on rates of vaccination of Indigenous people.