Lockdown measures extended in Australia amid Covid-19 outbreak

A woman walks under the Harbour Bridge in Sydney as the usually busy streets of Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin have fallen quiet with millions of Australians under stay-at-home orders to control the highly contagious Delta variant.

* NSW total cases in latest outbreak top 170 * South Australia logs first local cases of 2021 * Sydney, Perth, Darwin, Brisbane, Alice Springs locked down * Singapore to put Australian travellers in home quarantine Australian officials extended lockdown and social distancing measures to more of the country on Wednesday, with four major cities already under a hard lockdown in a race to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant. Around one in two Australians are under stay-at-home orders, with millions of others subjected to movement curbs and mandatory mask-wearing amid Covid-19 flare-ups in several locations. With more than five million residents of greater Sydney under a two-week lockdown until July 9, New South Wales state reported 22 new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, all linked to prior infections.