Australian state sees worst day with highest new COVID cases, 4 deaths.
The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) saw another devastating day on Tuesday with a record daily high of 356 new local cases and four deaths.
What is more worrying is that about a third of the new cases acquired locally were in the community while being infectious, Xinhua news agency reported.
NSW Health said three of the four deaths were linked to the current outbreak resulting from the delta variant and one case had been infected overseas.
Despite climbing local transmissions, the government has been reluctant to further tighten restrictions. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she “will not adopt any strategy that is not going to work” and is against the idea of putting a ring of steel around epicenter areas in south-west Sydney.
Berejiklian said existing restrictions for eight local government areas in western and south-west Sydney had prevented new infections from rising further, adding that stronger suppression works as hundreds of thousands of cases and deaths do not.
“That gives us an opportunity to see what people can do in September and October, but it’s really important to make sure that we provide a vaccine, targeted strategy to reduce the spread, especially among key worker groups.” “
In the neighboring state of Queensland, police have warned residents living in the border areas with NSW to expect more and more enforcement of border restrictions as they face increased transmission. Queensland Deputy Police Commissioner Steven Golashevsky said residents would be aware of the situation and would not travel unless absolutely necessary.
“We will increase operational capacity there to ensure that we are preventing large numbers of people coming in,” he said.
Meanwhile, the state of Victoria reported 20 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases, as its regional region enjoys its first day of lockdown.
.