This research focuses on NSW press conferences relating to the major Delta outbreak in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The article looks at the press conferences as they relate to the NSW government’s controversial targeting of the lower socioeconomic and ethnically diverse south-west ‘hotspot’ or ‘LGA of concern’, Fairfield, turning it into an area of intense policing. We argue strategic manoeuvring in the press conferences, through the individualisation of responsibility and blame shifting, were part of the NSW government’s attempts to minimise potential political fallout.