Australia’s largest city, Sydney, will remain closed for another month.
The New South Wales state government announced that the lockdown on the city of 5 million would last until at least August 28, after reporting 177 new infections in the past 24 hours on Wednesday. It was the largest number of days since the cluster was discovered in mid-June.
“I’m as upset and frustrated as all of you that we couldn’t get the number of cases we wanted at this point, but that’s the reality,” New South Wales Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian told reporters.
More than 2,500 people have become infected in a cluster that began when a limo driver tested positive for the contagious Delta variant on June 16. The driver was infected by a US flight crew that he had transported from Sydney Airport.
The cluster death toll reached 11 on Wednesday, with one woman dying in a Sydney hospital in her 90s.
In other Asia Pacific news:
– South Korea reported a new record of 1,896 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, a day after authorities began enforcing strict restrictions in areas outside the capital region. According to health officials, many cases in the Seoul area have been traced back to restaurants, schools, public bathhouses, churches and offices. Outside the capital, clusters have been tied to pubs, karaoke rooms, gyms and offices. South Korea has seen a sudden spike in new infections in recent weeks due to a slow adoption of vaccinations, lax public vigilance, and the rapidly spreading Delta variant. Health official son Youngrae said in a briefing Wednesday that the main goal at this point is to lower the flight path in the Seoul area by the end of next week to slow the spread outside the capital area.
– Drivers planning to leave east China’s Jiangsu Province must have a negative COVID-19 test taken in the past 48 hours or turn back as cases continue to increase in the province. The provincial Ministry of Transport said 93 checkpoints have been set up along the highways in the province, whose capital, Nanjing, is the epicenter of the recent outbreak in China. Drivers must stay in their vehicles and wear masks while health workers do the checks, the notice said. China has often taken similar containment measures to stop the virus from spreading, largely eliminating local transmission. The National Health Commission reported an additional 48 cases in Jiangsu in the past 24 hours on Wednesday, bringing the total to 154 in the past few days. According to the authorities, the virus that was transmitted is the highly contagious Delta variant. Another seven cases of local transmission were recorded in Sichuan, Liaoning and Yunnan provinces. The virus continues to spread despite the fact that China has given more than 1.5 billion doses of vaccine – which exceeds the total population of 1.4 billion. Questions have been raised about the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines, especially in the elderly.