Sydney sees worst COVID-19 day of 2021

New South Wales (NSW) reported 38 new local cases, up from 27 a day earlier, as its capital Sydney prepares for a third week of a lockdown.

“We don’t want to prolong the lockdown, we don’t want to see Sydney or New South Wales going in and out of lockdown until we have the vast majority of our population vaccinated,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.

Berejiklian implored residents to limit visits to family as data suggested the virus was spreading during such meetings, and urged people with flu-symptoms to take their entire family for COVID-19 tests due to the highly transmissible Delta strain.

She has promised this would be the last lockdown Sydney would need to endure in the pandemic although only around 10% of the country has been fully vaccinated.

Total infections neared 400 amid the largest outbreak of 2021 in the state, since the first case was detected in the city more than three weeks ago in a limousine driver who transported overseas airline crew.

A strict stay-at-home order had been enforced in Sydney, Australia’s largest city and home to a fifth of the country’s 25 million population, since June 26 for two weeks restricting people’s movements and limiting gatherings.- INDIA TODAY

Meanwhile, COVID-19 infections in England have quadrupled in a month since early June, a large prevalence study showed.

According to the research, led by Imperial College London, cases were estimated to be doubling every six days as a new wave fuelled by the Delta coronavirus variant picks up pace.

The study, one of Britain’s largest with 47,000 people returning tests from June 24 to July 5, found national prevalence was 0.59%, or 1 in 170 people, compared with 0.15% in the last round between late May and early June. – INDIA TODAY