Australia records worst pandemic day amid Delta outbreak

SYDNEY • Australia has suffered its worst day since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, with total daily cases surpassing the previous record posted more than a year ago as a Delta variant outbreak spreads as far as New Zealand.

New South Wales recorded 681 new cases, Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters yesterday in the state capital Sydney, where stay-at-home orders have been enforced for almost two months.

Victoria recorded 57 new infections - more than double from the previous day, and its highest tally since September - as state capital Melbourne endures its sixth lockdown since the pandemic began.

The number of cases in Australia's two-most populous states surpasses the nation's previous high, recorded in early August last year, when Melbourne was in the midst of a lockdown that lasted for three months.

The authorities are now finding that lockdown strategies that had worked before to eliminate community transmissions are failing to contain the spread of the highly contagious strain, especially as people grow increasingly weary of the stay-home restrictions.

"Everyone will have to learn to live with Delta," Ms Berejiklian said, signalling that her government had abandoned attempts to eliminate the virus. "In New South Wales, we are learning that earlier than" in other states, she said.

Ramping up vaccination rates is vital in order to start removing some lockdown curbs, she added.

Australia's outbreak has spread to New Zealand, which has entered a strict nationwide lockdown and posted at least 20 infections.

Sydney's outbreak is also increasingly spreading into other areas of Australia, forcing more than half of the country's 26 million people into lockdown.

That is creating an unprecedented threat to Indigenous communities hundreds of miles from Australia's most populous city, including in western New South Wales, where more than 150 infections have been detected.

The rapid rise in infections underscores how both nations' so-called "Covid Zero" strategy - which has relied on restricted international borders and strict testing to eliminate community cases - is under increasing strain.

The case surge has also injected a sense of urgency into Australia's previously slow vaccine roll-out, which has seen Prime Minister Scott Morrison criticised by health experts and political rivals for failing to quickly secure enough shots from a wide range of drugmakers.

As recently as March - when Australia was generally free of the virus - Mr Morrison declared that the inoculation roll-out was not a "race". But the Delta variant has flipped the script, with the health authorities now trying to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible despite remaining hampered by supply restraints.

According to Bloomberg's Vaccine Tracker, while less than 22 per cent of Australians are fully inoculated, close to 40 per cent have now received at least one dose.

Other states and territories have responded to the coronavirus crisis in south-eastern Australia by implementing hard borders to try to keep Delta at bay.

After a request from Queensland state authorities, defence force soldiers will start patrolling its border with New South Wales to enforce non-essential travel restrictions.

In a bright spot, the tropical northern city of Darwin was to exit its three-day lockdown yesterday, after managing to control a Delta cluster.

BLOOMBERG