NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian shut the southern border a month ago and initially publicly tip-toed around the move's key driver.

But no one is any doubt as to her motivations based on comments she made yesterday.

"Our first and foremost priority is to stop the spread of the virus in NSW and I don't think anyone would begrudge us for being cautious when people from a highly infectious state are trying to make their way through NSW," she said.

Message received loud and clear, Premier.

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But within this hardline framework a community, which has done a brilliant job at being essentially virus-free since the pandemic began, is suffering big time.

People can't get to work, businesses are going to the wall, the economic toll is immense, but other impacts are starting to mount.

Albury Wodonga Health can no longer access medicos from Melbourne to work in the emergency department and intensive care unit at Albury hospital because of travel restrictions imposed by NSW.

High priority emergency presentations could be diverted to Wagga by the end of the week if reinforcements can't be found elsewhere in the state.

Melbourne locums will still work at Wodonga hospital, but the situation is nearing crisis point and the NSW government must be part of the solution for an area it has chosen as the frontline to keep the state virus-free.

On a separate front, farmers, who have the job of growing the food we eat, have also been caught up in the border closure chaos in an anomaly impossible to think could actually happen.

Farmers living on the Victorian side of the border were aghast to discover they would have to travel via Sydney to go to properties they also own in NSW.

Commonsense is desperately needed when decisions are being made in Sydney.