New South Wales Authority Predicts Sydney Will Experience Peak Daily COVID-19 Infections Next Week

JAKARTA - Local authorities predict Sydney, the epicenter of the current biggest coronavirus outbreak in Australia, is expected to see a peak in daily infections next week, as vaccination easing efforts continue to be stepped up, to ease lockdown rules.

Australia is struggling to contain the third wave of COVID-19 infections caused by the Delta variant in Sydney, Australia, and the capital Canberra, forcing more than half of the country's population of around 25 million people, to be under a strict lockdown at home.

New South Wales Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian said government modeling revealed New South Wales would reach its highest number of intensive care bed requests in early October, with additional 'stress' on the system in the next few weeks.

Modeling shows that daily cases in the worst-affected suburbs of Sydney are expected to rise to 2.000 cases by the middle of this month.

"If too many of us do the wrong thing, (if) there are too many super-spread events, we could see those numbers higher", Berejiklian said at a news conference in Sydney.

A total of 1.071 COVID-19 cases are currently in New South Wales hospitals, with 177 people in intensive care (ICU), 67 of whom require ventilation. Officials said they had quadrupled ICU beds to about 2.000 in the state early last year, to deal with the pandemic.

Meanwhile, New South Wales reported 1.281 new cases on Monday, mostly in Sydney, down from 1.485 the day before. Five new deaths were recorded. Meanwhile, the state of Victoria, which includes Melbourne, reported 246 new cases on Monday, its biggest daily increase this year.

For information, citing Worldometers Australia as of September 6 recorded 63.142 cases of COVID-19 infection, with 1.044 patients dying and 34.413 patients fully recovering since last year's pandemic.