With an outbreak of the Delta variant spreading rapidly, Australian officials on Saturday introduced a strict two-week lockdown for all of greater Sydney and the regions surrounding the nation’s largest city. The first full-city lockdown for Sydney since early 2020 reflects a sudden rise in concern among officials in the state of New South Wales, who had been hoping that contact tracers and targeted isolation would be enough to keep the more contagious variant under control. Instead, after initially resisting a full lockdown, officials said on Saturday that strict citywide stay-home orders were necessary because they had found several additional chains of transmission around the city among people who had been infectious for days. The virus, said New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian, was simply moving too quickly through the population. Over the past 10 days, a cluster that began with an airport limousine driver in Sydney, a city of five million, has jumped to nearly 100 cases, with dozens more expected over the coming days.

Source: New York Times June 26, 2021 13:41 UTC