PARTY authorized Australia will extend the lock (lockdown) in the state of Victoria, although cases of Covid-19 transmission have decreased slightly as the region struggles to stop the spread of the highly contagious variant, Delta.
Head of State government Victoria, Daniel Andrews, said the quarantine rules would not be lifted because cases were still detected in the community.
“Maybe a few sunny days and then there’s a high chance we’ll be back in lockdown. That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” Andrews said, explaining why the lockdown wasn’t lifted as originally scheduled.
Victoria, the country’s second most populous state which includes Melbourne, on Monday reported 13 locally emerging cases. The number was down from 16 cases the previous day. All the new local cases are related to each other.
Nearly half of Australia’s 25 million people are undergoing stay-at-home orders. Sydney, the country’s largest city, has imposed a five-week lockdown while all of Victoria has a stay-at-home order.
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The rules were put in place after the fast-moving variant of the Covid-19 Delta sparked the country’s worst outbreak this year.
The state of New South Wales (NSW), of which Sydney is the capital, reported 98 new cases that emerged locally. That number was down from 105 the day before.
At least 20 new cases of transmission occurred in the community, almost the same as the emergence of cases in the last few days.
“The number 20 is a number that we really want to get rid of, the closer that number gets to zero, the sooner we can end the lockdown,” NSW head of government, Gladys Berejiklian, told a televised news conference.
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NSW has twice extended the lockdown in Sydney since it first imposed the rule on 26 June. The strict restrictions currently in place will expire on July 30.
Although cases declined on Monday, Berejiklian said NSW could not see the outcome of the strict lockdown for “the next four or five days”.
