NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian held a media conference to explain the state's shutdown today — here's a transcript of what she said:

Good morning everybody. I wanted to completely support and endorse the comments of the Prime Minister in relation to National Cabinet deliberations yesterday.

New South Wales, along with every other state, will be putting in additional enforcement measures from midday today, and as was said last night by the Prime Minister.

This includes venues such as pubs, clubs, gyms, cinemas and entertainment venues. Restaurants and cafes and the like will be restricted to home delivery and takeaway.

This is in addition to a number of other measures the Prime Minister outlined last night in relation to additional enforcement of the rules we have in relation to social distancing.

This is really important for the citizens of NSW. As the chief medical officer will explain today, we have an increasing umber of cases everyday and that rate is going up.

We also know we are the most populous state and need to do everything we can to keep our citizens safe.

I am very pleased that everything NSW wanted to adopt today was endorsed by the National Cabinet and these are nationwide shutdowns enforced today from noon and I completely support that. I ask all of our citizens, too, support that.

Today, this morning, the nsw.gov.au website will have specific details about which venues will no longer be allowed to operate in the normal way from noon today. This will provide certainty to businesses.

If your industry, business or venue is not on that list you can continue to operate, however we do recommend where possible that people work from home to reduce the social interaction and ensure social distancing is respected and maintained.

I want to reinforce the work of the National Cabinet in relation to this and I want to stress that this position was taken on the basis of health advice.

The health experts advised us to take this position and we have done that swiftly and in the interests of our citizens to keep them safe.

In relation to schools I want to stress that schools in New South Wales from tomorrow will remain open. The health advice has not changed.

However, for practical reasons, in NSW we will be encouraging parents to keep their children at home to ensure there is one single unit of teaching.

Already last week we had up to 30 per cent of parents who chose to keep their children at home and we appreciate and anticipate that number will increase.

For practical reasons we are encouraging parents to keep their students at home. However I want to stress that for parents that have no option, for parents that are workers and have no option, the school is safe for children to attend.

Schools will remain open and for those children who have no option, whose parents have no option, no child will be turned away from school, a fact that will mean that there will be a single unit of teaching for all teachers.

Online learning will take place until the school holidays commence in three weeks' time. This is the strong position of NSW which we believe has a practical application to the health advice received and a practical application to making sure there is certainty for parents, for teachers and also for students.

I will allow the Education Minister to further elaborate on the good work the Department of Education has done in relation to transitioning to online learning.

But when you have 30 per cent of parents already making the choice to keep their children at home, we feel this application of the health advice in NSW is the best course to follow.

So just to stress, for practical reasons we are encouraging parents to keep their children at home.

There will be online support provided but schools remain open, based on health advice and for those parents that have no option, that are workers, schools remain open for their children to be supervised in that online learning environment.

But for teachers it means one unit of teaching. There won't be a separate class for kids at home or kids who are at school, but it will be one unit of teaching that makes it simple and practical and that is the strongest advice we can provide to parents today.

We live in uncertain times. We know it a scary situation for many people but we also appreciate that what NSW has to do in line with the National Cabinet is what is in the best interests of our citizens.

I want to assure the citizens of this state that I, as your leader, as the New South Wales Premier, and my Government, will not shy away from taking decisions in the best interests of our citizens to keep everybody safe and provide certainty.

I want to thank the community for your patience. I want to emphasise the health advice in relation to social distancing.

Please, please, know how serious this is.

It is because we noticed anecdotally and observed that not everybody, not enough people were taking that advice in relation to social distancing which is why all the states and territories today have included a number of items or venues that can no longer operate in the normal way.