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The increase in cases brings tightening of the lockdown in Sydney

The authorities at Sydney ordered the operation of the construction sites to be suspended, banned unnecessary retail purchases and threatened employers with fines forcing employees to work from the office as new COVID-19 cases continue to rise while the city has been in a lockdown for three weeks now.

Officials in the state of New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney, They also barred hundreds of thousands of people in the western suburbs – the worst-hit area – from leaving their neighborhoods for work., as they recorded 111 new cases in the last 24 hours compared to 97 a day earlier.

The state also recorded another death from the coronavirus, bringing the total to three since the beginning of the year and the nationwide toll to 913 since the pandemic began.

“I can not remember another period during which our state faced difficulties to such an extent”, said the Prime Minister of New South Wales Gladys Beretziklian in a press conference that was broadcast on television.

The city of 5 million people, the largest in Australia, has been in a lockdown since June 26, which is scheduled to end on July 30, after a driver transporting staff to the airport brought the virus to the community and caused a highly contagious outbreak. variant strain, according to the principles.

More than 1,000 people and neighboring areas have since been found positive. What worries health authorities most is the number of infected people who were active in the community before being found positive.

“We are chasing our tail in terms of cases”said Carrie Chad, head of health services in New South Wales, at a news conference.

The neighboring state of Victoria also announced a jump in daily COVID-19 cases to 19 from 6 the previous day, raising fears that the short lockdown, which was expected to end on Tuesday, may be extended.

Victoria and the Sydney metropolitan area together house about 12 million people, which means that almost half of Australia’s population is in some sort of lockdown.

Australia has managed to avoid the high number of infections and deaths recorded by other countries in the early stages of the pandemic thanks to a series of measures such as closing borders and restricting citizens. However, 18 months later, the federal government is being criticized for the slow pace of the vaccination campaign. Just over 10% of Australia’s 25 million people have been fully vaccinated, according to government figures.

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