Australia Cautions Covid Cases To Rise Despite Weeks-Long Lockdown

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.

Coronavirus cases in Australia spiked again on Thursday, 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. New South Wales (NSW), Australia's most populous state, reported 124 new COVID-19 cases, versus 110 a day earlier, a record for this year and the highest in 16 months. Most of the infections were reported in state capital Sydney, which is in its fourth week of a lockdown. Victoria state, entering a second week of stay-at-home orders, logged 26 new cases, up from 22. "We anticipate case numbers will continue to go up before they start coming down and we need to brace ourselves for that," said Gladys Berejiklian, premier of NSW.