Sydney Covid
The Delta outbreak in Sydney has not crested, and residents should brace themselves for additional deaths, authorities said on Wednesday, as Australia’s largest city continued to set new daily infection records despite a nearly two-month lockdown.
“We haven’t seen the worst of it yet, and the only way we can stop it is for everyone to stay at home,” New South Wales (NSW) Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney, the state capital.
NSW reported its biggest daily rise of 633 new cases, including 545 in Sydney, eclipsing the state’s previous daily high of 478 hit on Monday. Sixty people have died since the first Delta case was reported in Sydney on June 16, including three confirmed on Wednesday.
With only about 28% of people in NSW above 16 years of age fully vaccinated, state Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant warned there would be more deaths if cases continued to rise.
Australia is in the grip of a third wave of infections that has exposed weaknesses in the country’s vaccine rollout and forced more than half of its 25 million people into lockdown.
Only one-fourth of the adult population is fully vaccinated so far, putting pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison whose government missed its initial vaccine targets.
Sydney, Melbourne and the capital Canberra are under stay-at-home orders, pushing the A$2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) economy the brink of its second recession in as many years.
Victoria state, home to Melbourne, reported 24 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, the same number as a day earlier, as authorities race to track infections with an unknown source.
VACCINATION PUSH
With just over 40,000 cases and 970 deaths, Australia has largely staved off the high COVID numbers seen in many other developed countries.
Efforts to restrict the outbreak to Sydney, however, have failed, with the virus spreading to numerous remote communities with low vaccination rates.
Five vaccination teams of defense personnel are scheduled to arrive in regional towns this week to speed up the deployment.
More than 500,000 Pfizer doses, half of the stock obtained from Poland over the weekend, have been sent to Sydney’s 12 worst-affected neighborhoods to vaccinate those under the age of 40.
