Australia extends Sydney blockade as COVID-19 outbreak approaches 900 infection by Reuters

Made by Jonathan Barrett

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian authorities on Wednesday extended Sydney’s closure by at least 14 days after initial three-week restrictions in the country’s largest city did not end the COVID-19 outbreak.

Gladys Berejiklian, the Prime Minister of South Wales, said the restrictions should be maintained until at least 30 July, after 97 new cases of local transmission had been reported a day earlier.

“It hurts to always say that, but we need to extend the blockade for at least two more weeks,” Berejiklian said in Sydney on Wednesday.

“We want to get out of this lock as soon as possible and that’s why we have the settings.”

Of the 97 new cases, 24 were infectious in the community.

Berejiklian has repeatedly said that the blockade, which will be closed from June 26, will only be lifted when cases of newly infected cases become infectious when the number of cases circulating in the community reaches zero.

The port city of 5 million people began to take over a highly contagious variant of the Delta, which plunged into its first two-week closure at the end of June, in a country that has largely prevented mass infections.

Many non-essential businesses are closed, and most students at the school stay at home because residents are only allowed outside of their home to engage in essential activities and physical exercise.

GROWING HOSPITALIZATIONS

As a result of the Sydney outbreak, there are 71 COVID-19 patients in hospital, and there are 20 people in intensive care units (ICUs), including one 20-year-old and two 30-year-olds.

“Yes, it is less likely to be hospitalized at a younger age, but it can still be a serious illness to be admitted to the ICU; so it is important to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe so we can follow public health advice,” said the New South Wales Health Director. Kerry Chant said.

The shutdown has been extended twice, when the restrictions have not reduced the number of daily cases. Since the first one was detected in the eastern suburbs of the city in mid-June, there have been just a total of 900 infections. There have been two deaths, the first in the country this year.

The virus appears to have spread to some of the previously unaffected areas of the city, according to a list of potential sites of exposure published by health authorities overnight.

The outbreak has also spread to regional areas, a case of Goulburn has been detected, about 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Sydney, and has crossed the Victoria state border where three cases were reported on Tuesday.

The outbreak has begun to put pressure on health services as there have been queues for COVID-19 tests in Fairfield, south-west Sydney, stretching miles from night to night due to new health orders requiring people working in the suburbs to work regularly.

Snap (NYSE 🙂 blockades, rapid contact tracing and harsh rules of social exclusion have otherwise helped keep Australian COVID-19 numbers lower than in many other developed countries, with more than 31,300 cases and 912 deaths.

Thanks to the slow vaccination program, less than 10% of the population has received two doses of vaccine.

In New South Wales, health workers have administered just over 2.7 million vaccine doses, authorities said on Wednesday.