Australia’s New South Wales state reported another record day of Covid-19 cases on Saturday, as officials in Melbourne, the country’s second city, raced to trace the source of its outbreak.
Australia’s three largest cities were under lockdown on Saturday, as New South Wales reported 319 community cases of the virus and five more deaths, a third straight day of record case numbers.
With the virus spreading across Sydney’s vast suburbs, even as the city went into its seventh week of lockdown, state Health Minister Brad Hazard expressed disappointment that people were ignoring restrictions and urged residents to stay at home .
“This is the biggest thing you can do for all of us, and for yourself, to make sure we defeat this delta virus that’s wreaking havoc around the world,” Hazard told the media.
He also announced that the city of Armidale, about a six-hour drive northwest of Sydney, would join nearly 60 percent of Australia’s 25 million residents, who are already under stay-at-home orders.
Contactors in Melbourne’s Victoria state, who on Thursday returned to lockdown for the sixth time since the pandemic began, were still working to track down the source of its outbreak.
Chief of State Daniel Andrews announced 29 new cases of the virus, saying, “It’s very important, looking at the many cases … we don’t know where those two outbreaks started.”
And as the city of Brisbane prepares to end its lockdown on Sunday, health officials urged people not to become complacent ahead of the easing of restrictions.
Supply shortages and vaccine hesitation have thwarted efforts to immunize Australians, with only over 20 percent of the population fully vaccinated.
The country managed to survive the worst pandemic for the past 18 months, but the effectiveness of its “Covid zero” policy was questioned as the lockdown struggled to stamp out a delta version of the highly infected.
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