Sydney’s delta-strain coronavirus outbreak has reached a record daily high since mid-June, with authorities concerned that some residents aren’t complying with lockdown restrictions as the coronavirus spreads through vulnerable multicultural communities. Sydney recorded 38 new Covid-19 cases in the community from the day before, with 21 of those in the south-western areas.
“Those numbers are too high — we need to get those numbers down. Please, please avoid contact with households with other households, please avoid visiting family and friends because you are not allowed to,” New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Thursday, reports Bloomberg.
While economies such as the United Kingdom and United States are preparing to open up, Australia’s international borders remain largely closed to non-residents and comparatively small clusters of the coronavirus make even domestic travel difficult.
On Wednesday, Australian politician Gladys Berejiklian announced the initial two-week lockdown, due to expire on Friday, would need to be extended for at least another week. She asked Prime Minister Scott Morrison to ramp up the vaccination rollout.
Berejiklian has flagged that her government may need to impose harsher restrictions in three southwestern Sydney local government areas — Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury-Bankstown.
“The two biggest areas where people are spreading the virus is through household contacts of people close to them, and people who are undertaking activities with symptoms. We don’t want to prolong the lockdown, we don’t want to see Sydney or New South Wales going in and out of lockdown until we have the vast majority of our population vaccinated,” Berejiklian said.
