SYDNEY, July 22 ― Coronavirus cases in Australia spiked again today, despite a weeks-long lockdown, with authorities warning that infections would rise more and take a toll on the economy as the country battles to contain the highly contagious Delta variant.
Sydney, home to a fifth of Australia's 25 million people, was due to exit lockdown on July 30 but Berejiklian has said the number of infections in the community must be near zero first.“Until we have enough of our population fully vaccinated, we will be living with some level of restriction and that will depend on how quickly we can overcome the severity of the current outbreak,” she said.
The economy had boomed to pre-pandemic levels in the early months of this year thanks to low Covid-19 cases.