Two million residents of Sydney will be under nightly curfew from next week to slow the highly infectious Delta variant of coronavirus that is spreading across New South Wales state, authorities said on Friday as they extended lockdown orders, APA reports citing Reuters.
Australia's third wave of COVID-19 infections, centred on Sydney, has forced more than half the population of nearly 26 million into lockdown and pushed the world's 13th-largest economy to the brink of its second recession in as many years.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian extended Sydney's lockdown until the end of September and imposed new restrictions including the curfew, a requirement to wear a mask when outside and limits on exercise.
"I asked health and police to work together, to give me a final list of what we can throw at this, to leave no shadow of a doubt as to how serious we are about getting the rate of growth down, the case numbers down," Berejiklian told a media conference.
A curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. would take effect from Monday in the 12 worst-affected council areas, covering about 40% of Sydney's population of 5 million. Anyone caught entering those areas would be fined and required to self-isolate for 14 days.
With a similar curfew already in place in Melbourne, more than a quarter of Australia's population will be confined to their homes at night from Monday, with the exception of essential workers.
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