Western Australia has recorded 24 new local COVID-19 cases amid a growing Bunbury cluster, with the Premier warning it will not be possible to control the state's outbreak.
Mark McGowan said nine of the new cases were from the Bunbury area and were all tied "in one way or another" to the Albemarle lithium plant being constructed near the regional city.
There are now a total of 17 cases in the Bunbury cluster, with 13 of them workers from the lithium refinery construction site and the others close contacts.
The remaining new cases were from the Perth metropolitan area, Mr McGowan said.
They include one mystery case yet to be linked to any known infections.
The Premier said the refinery site was a very large one, and only one of the 30 contractors working there had staff affected by the outbreak.
He conceded the state would not be able to control the current outbreak but said the state's border needed to remain closed "to save West Australian lives".
"We now have an outbreak and we're not going to be able to get it under control," he told journalists in Rockingham.
"This is a human tragedy and what our measures are designed to do … is to reduce the impact to Western Australians."
A Cottesloe pub and a Mandurah nightclub were among several exposure sites added to the Healthy WA website on Wednesday afternoon.
It comes after 14 new local cases were recorded yesterday.
Union concerned about safety
Mr McGowan said 99 close or casual contacts had been identified from the Bunbury cases, and 73 had received negative test results. All workers at the site had been vaccinated.
"The area affected has been closed down or shut down [and] all the close contacts in the same unit have been requested to get tested and isolate," he said.
But the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union of WA said the Albermarle outbreak indicated some industrial sites did not have appropriate COVID-19 plans in place.
The union's state secretary, Steve McCartney, said the first cases on site were notified on Sunday, but by Tuesday night there had been no communication about them.
He said workers were concerned about safety.
"Companies like this, and others, are always complaining about lack of skills and opening the borders and letting more people in. But the reality of it is, when COVID does occur on site, they seem to be in a scramble," he said.
"At the moment, these workers don't know [what's going on]. And we believe that they should be informed fully so they understand and can take precautions to make sure they don't infect their family and their friends."
Skyworks crowd numbers down
The state's Chief Health Officer had deemed it safe for the Australia Day Skyworks to go ahead, with the event typically attracting hundreds of thousands of people to the banks of the Swan River.
But with just a couple of hours to go until fireworks were due to light up the sky, crowds on the Perth foreshore were much smaller than in previous years.
Brodie Nicholls said he believed West Australians would "get through this if they do the right thing".
"We marched through the streets. Everyone had their masks on, people were checking in, people were social distancing," he said.
Meanwhile, the City of Bunbury's Australia Day fireworks display was still set to go ahead on Wednesday night.
The thousands of people lined the town's Leschenault Inlet wearing face mask
'We're trying to save lives': McGowan
Mr McGowan said he was determined to keep West Australians safe in the face of the current outbreak, which has spiralled since the state government last week delayed the February 5 border reopening indefinitely.
"What we're trying to do is save West Australian lives and stop people losing their parents," he said.
"As we're seeing over east, huge numbers of people are dying.
"What we're trying to do is reduce the impact on our state while we get our third dose vaccinations up."
WA Health data shows an average of 5,087 people are coming forward every day to get tested for COVID-19 since the current outbreak began on December 23.
In mid-November, daily testing rates dropped to their lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, with just 98 swabs taken on November 15.
Mr McGowan said with the current outbreak taking hold, it was important people with symptoms came forward to be tested, no matter if they had visited an exposure site or not.
"We've had a very good run for the last two years, but obviously we now have an outbreak and we're not going to be able to get back under control," he said.
"We've managed to keep the spread down very significantly compared to other places, but it's out there. So please go and get tested."
Cunderdin case confirmed
Earlier the Shire of Cunderdin, about 160 kilometres east of Perth, announced it had cancelled its Australia Day events after a COVID-19 case emerged in the region.
Shire president Alison Harris said the case was confirmed on Monday.
She said the risk to the community was believed to be minimal, but the Shire did not want to put anyone at risk.
"Unfortunately, we did have to cancel our Australia Day event," she said.
"We did have a positive case recorded in Cunderdin, although I believe it was a person returning from holidaying in the South West where they contracted their COVID."
New G2G pass system on the way
Police Minister Paul Papalia said an updated G2G pass application would be implemented from February 1 for those wanting to enter the state, in line with WA's slightly relaxed border rules, and there were currently 22,000 applications pending.
He said all 22,000 would be transferred across to the new system but those who had not yet applied should wait until the new system was in place.
The new rules allow eligible people to quarantine at home and apply to returning West Australians and those wishing to enter the state for compassionate reasons.
In a significant change, Mr Papalia said people returning to WA from overseas, who were granted entry to the state, would be able to quarantine at home if they entered via another Australian state.
"If you fly into another state, once you land you will be treated in the same way as a domestic traveller," he said.
"You will be able to return home and isolate at home for 14 days."
Those changes come into effect from February 5.
It comes after police charged a 25-year-old man over the alleged use of a fraudulent vaccination certificate to gain entry to Hakea Prison yesterday.
He is due to face Armadale Magistrates Court on February 22.
