Minister Of Finance Positive For COVID-19, Australia's Daily Infection Cases Reaches 100,000 Amid Omicron Variant Outbreak

JAKARTA - Australia's Finance Minister, Josh Frydenberg, said he had tested positive for COVID-19, joining other top government officials infected amid the outbreak of the Omicron variant, causing daily infection cases to hit 100,000 this Saturday.

"Like thousands of Australians, today I tested positive for COVID-19", Frydenberg wrote in a text message he posted to Twitter and Facebook on Friday evening.

"I have the same symptoms and I am self-isolating with my family", he added without elaborating or disclosing which variant he had.

Before Frydenberg, other high-ranking Australian MPs including Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, and Defense Minister, Peter Dutton, had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and passed it.

Under Australia's current COVID-19 guidelines, people who return positive tests and those deemed to be 'close contacts' must self-isolate for seven days.

Australia has recorded a record number of new daily infections in a row, with another spike on Saturday. Kangaroo Country reported 116,025 new cases, breaking the previous day's record of more than 78,000. Nearly 100,000 of the new cases were in the most populous state of Victoria, which is home to the upcoming Australian Open tennis tournaments in Melbourne and New South Wales.

Victoria recorded its daily caseload, which more than doubled from the previous day to 51,356, including the results of rapid antigen tests carried out up to a week earlier, which can only be tabulated once posted on the website from Friday.

Australia reported 25 new COVID-19-related deaths, the highest since the peak of the Delta variant wave in October 2021.

Meanwhile, Australian leaders, including Frydenberg, have urged the country to move away from a stop-start lockdown strategy now, as more than 90 percent of the population over the age of 16 have been fully vaccinated.

But country leaders have reimposed restrictions amid an exploding number of cases, most of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

To note, several states have reintroduced mask mandates and suspended non-urgent elective surgeries, while New South Wales on Friday continued bans on dancing and drinking while standing in bars.