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Sydney locked down for another week as Delta COVID-19 variant spreads

07 July 2021 09:45 (UTC +04:00)

The leader of Australia's New South Wales (NSW) state on Wednesday ordered a week-long extension of Sydney's COVID-19 lockdown, warning new cases are bound to rise as the country's biggest city grapples with the highly infectious Delta variant, APA reports citing Reuters.

Sydney, home to a fifth of Australia's 25 million people, was plunged into lockdown on June 26 as a Delta variant outbreak persuaded officials to tighten restrictions in a country that has been slow to vaccinate. Strict stay-at-home orders were due to end on Friday, but now remain in place until July 16.

"This Delta strain is a game-changer, it is extremely transmissible and more contagious than any other form of the virus that we've seen," NSW state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.

With Sydney fighting its worst outbreak of the year so far, total infections have topped 350 since the first case was detected three weeks ago in a limousine driver who transported overseas airline crew.

A total of 27 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 were reported on Wednesday in NSW, up from 18 a day earlier. Of the new cases, 20 were either in isolation throughout or for part of their infectious period, while seven cases spent time in the community while they were infectious.