Australia reportedly counts nine confirmed cases of the Omicron variant eight of which recorded in NSW and one in the Northern Territory.

The latest case, a student at Regents Park Christian School in Western Sydney, has not been overseas and has no links to people who have travelled abroad.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said two other students at the school had “early indications” of Omicron infection and were undergoing further testing.

“I’m expecting those results should be back later today,” he said.

Mr Hazzard said this latest case was concerning as it appeared to have been transmitted in the community.

“I think transmission is always a concern but we again need to keep it in perspective at the moment. Worldwide, there is not clarity around whether this particular variant is going to cause us anywhere near the problems that the earlier variants caused us.”

The previous confirmed cases had arrived on flight SQ231 from Singapore to Sydney on Sunday 28 November. All cases are fully vaccinated, had been in quarantine since arrival from recent visits to southern Africa. The new variant categorisation comes as part of ongoing genomic sequencing into the confirmed COVID cases in returned travellers.

Meanwhile, an Omicron case concerning a child in NSW has also been identified. The individual was too young to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and has been staying with their parents at the Mantra apartments in Chatswood. The parents are fully vaccinated and currently infected as they all arrived on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney on 23 November.

The family is isolating in special health accommodation. Two other members of the household are also positive to COVID-19 and are being sequenced to see if they have the Omicron variant.

“These travellers have not been in southern Africa and NSW Health is concerned transmission may have occurred on this flight,” NSW Health said in a statement.

While Chatswood, has gone into a full seven-day alert due to the new variant, South Australia has decided to change its NSW border restrictions, again.

“Effective later this afternoon we will be putting further requirements for people coming from NSW to have a test on arrival. This is another way that we will be protecting ourselves,” SA Premier Steven Marshal said.

“What I can say is we’ll be monitoring the situation, particularly in NSW, extraordinarily carefully. We have been looking at it on a daily basis.”