Sydney’s COVID-19 cases grow as more restrictions announced

Australia’s New South Wales state reported 29 locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Saturday, with authorities saying Sydney and some surrounding areas will enter a hard two-week lockdown to control a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant.

Saturday’s data includes 17 infections in the country’s most populous state that were already announced on Friday, taking the number of infections linked to the Bondi outbreak to 80.

More than a million people in downtown Sydney and eastern suburbs of Australia’s biggest city were already under lockdown due to the outbreak, but health authorities said they needed to expand the curbs after more infections were recorded, with exposure sites increasing beyond the initial areas of concern.

“Even though we don’t want to impose burdens unless we absolutely have to, unfortunately this is a situation where we have to,” said New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Australia has been more successful in managing the pandemic than many other advanced economies through swift border closures, social distancing rules and a high community compliance with them, reporting slightly more than 30,400 cases and 910 COVID-19 deaths.

But the country has struggled significantly with the vaccination rollout and small outbreaks continue.

On Friday, the government granted provisional approval for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, potentially expanding its supply options.

Berejiklian said she would hold an emergency government meeting with health authorities later on Saturday.

“The situation is worsening beyond what we would have liked to have seen this morning, and the reason for that is that the new exposure sites are outside of those areas of concern we had highlighted,” Berejiklian told a news briefing.

“There is concern that some of those cases may have been exposed for a number of days without the person knowing they had the virus, and that where our concern is. And that’s what we will be looking at in the next few hours.”

Saturday’s lockdown in New South Wales will also include the regions of Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong, which surround Sydney.

Under the rules in place through July 9, people can leave home for essential work, medical care, education or shopping. The rest of the state will have limits on public gatherings and masks will be obligatory indoors.

“There was no point doing it for three days or five days because it wouldn’t have done the job,” Berejiklian said.

Her conservative state government was reluctant to impose the lockdown, but a growing number of health experts called for it, as Australia remains largely unvaccinated.