Sydney’s lockdown is likely to be extended, and Delta variant cases are on the rise!

On Thursday, the COVID-19 Delta outbreak in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, swelled by 239 cases, the pandemic’s daily maximum surge, prompting authorities to grant police more authority to shut down companies that do not comply with lockdown orders.

Over two million people in eight Sydney hotspots will be required to wear masks outside and stay within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius of their homes.

The fifth week of a nine-week lockdown in Sydney is coming to an end on August 28, but the spread of the infectious Delta strain continues.

The majority of new locally acquired cases were detected in Sydney, with at least 66 of them contagious while in the community. The lockdown in Sydney will not be lifted until the number of cases in the community has dropped to near zero, according to authorities.

“It only takes a handful of people, or a small percentage, to do the wrong thing and cause a setback for all of us. We can’t afford setbacks,” Gladys Berejiklian, the state Premier, told reporters in Sydney.

Sydney, which is home to one-fifth of Australia’s 25 million people, has been hit hard by the virus this year, leading officials to extend lockdown restrictions for another month on Wednesday.

There have been almost 2,800 cases detected so far, with 182 people being admitted to hospitals. Fifty-four people are in critical condition, with 22 of them requiring ventilator. There have been two more deaths recorded, bringing the total number of deaths in the most current outbreak to 13.

Despite Greater Sydney being under lockdown since June 26, infections have progressively escalated due to only roughly 17 percent of people over the age of 16 in New South Wales being completely vaccinated.

A man who returned from Wuhan, Hubei, China, tested positive for the covid19 virus in Victoria on January 25, 202

Non-residents were forbidden from entering Australia on March 20, and reverting citizens were recommended to stay in supervised quarantine motels for two weeks beginning March 27.

Similarly, many states and territories have closed their borders to varied degrees, with some doing so until late 2020.

Source: Thomson Reuters