Police arrest hundreds of protesters as Australia reports record Covid-19 cases

Police used pepper spray in Melbourne to break up crowds surging towards police lines. PHOTO: AFP
Protesters marching in Melbourne on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: AFP
Protesters clashing with the police in Melbourne on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: EPA-EFE
A protester being detained in Sydney on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Police seizing placards from the protest in Sydney. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

MELBOURNE (REUTERS) -Australian police arrested hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters in Melbourne and Sydney on Saturday (Aug 21) and seven officers were hospitalised as a result of clashes, as officials reported the country's highest single-day rise in Covid-19 cases.

Mounted police used pepper spray in Melbourne to break up crowds surging towards police lines, while smaller groups of protesters were prevented from congregating in Sydney by a large contingent of riot police.

Victoria state police said that they arrested 218 people in the state capital Melbourne. They issued 236 fines and kept three people in custody for assaulting police.

The arrested people face fines of A$5,452 (S$5,300) each for breaching public health orders.

Police in New South Wales, where Sydney is the capital, said they charged 47 people with breaching public health orders or resisting arrest, among other offences, and issued more than 260 fines ranging from A$50 to $3,000.

The police said about 250 people made it to the city for the protest.

Sydney, a city of more than five million people, has been in a strict lockdown for weeks now, failing so far to contain an outbreak of the highly transmissible coronavirus Delta variant, which has spread across internal borders and as far as neighbouring New Zealand.

The vast majority of the 894 cases reported across Australia on Saturday were found in Sydney, the epicentre of the Delta variant-fuelled outbreak.

"We are in a very serious situation here in New South Wales," state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said. "There is no time now to be selfish, it's time to think of the broader community and your families."

The police patrolled Sydney's streets and blocked both private and public transport into the centre of the city to reduce the number of people gathering at an unauthorised protest.

In Melbourne, a large crowd managed to march through the city, with some protesters clashing with the police, after state Premier Daniel Andrews expanded a lockdown in that city to the entire state.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton had earlier warned people to stay away from the protest, adding it was "just ridiculous to think that people would be so selfish and come and do this".

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Several hundred people also protested peacefully in Brisbane, which is not in lockdown.

Although often violent, anti-lockdown protests are not broadly supported by Australians.

A late-July poll by market research firm Utting Research showed that only 7 per cent of people support the demonstrations.

Protesters clashing with the police in Melbourne on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: AFP
A protester being detained in Sydney on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Compliance with public health rules has been one of the key cited reasons behind Australia's success in managing the pandemic. But the country has been struggling to rein in the third wave of infections that began in Sydney in mid-June.

Only about a third of Australians aged 16 and above have been fully vaccinated, according to federal health ministry data released on Saturday.

New South Wales officials reported three deaths and 516 people in hospital on Saturday. Of the 85 people in intensive care, 76 were unvaccinated, officials said.

Protesters marching in Sydney on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Protesters marching in Melbourne on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: AFP

At least 96 people were active in the community during their infectious period, and there were a number of breaches of public health orders, all slowing the efforts to curtail the outbreak.

In Victoria, at least 39 of the new cases were active in the community while infectious, raising concerns over officials' ability to gain control over the outbreak. Eighteen people were in hospital, eight in intensive care and six on ventilators.

Australia's Covid-19 numbers are still relatively low compared with other developed countries, with just more than 43,000 cases and 978 deaths, but the latest outbreak has seen a significant resurgence in cases.

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