Delta Variant Forces Sydney To Extend Lockdown For A Month, Threatened By A$2 Trillion Economic Recession

Illustration of a park in the State of New South Wales that was closed due to the lockdown. (Wikimedia Commons/Classy Melissa)

JAKARTA - Australian authorities have extended a lockdown in Sydney, Australia's largest city and capital of the State of New South Wales for another four weeks, after the Delta variant of the COVID-19 outbreak failed to contain its previous lockdown.

Although the current lockdown will only expire in the next three days, the authorities decided to extend the lockdown in Sydney until August 28, due to the high number of transmissions of the Delta variant which began last month.

The state of New South Wales reported 177 new cases on Tuesday, from 172 on Monday. It was the biggest increase since unmasked and unvaccinated airport drivers are said to have sparked the current outbreak. The state also reported the death of a woman in her 90s, the 11th death from the outbreak.

Of particular concern, at least 46 of the new COVID-19 cases were people who were active in the community before being diagnosed, increasing the chances of transmission, authorities said. Meanwhile, easing can only be done if active community transmissions must approach zero.

"I'm as upset and frustrated as you all are that we can't get the number of cases we want at this point, but that's the reality," New South Wales Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian said at a televised news conference.

Berejiklian added that police would step up enforcement of broad social distancing rules, urging people to report suspected wrongdoing, saying "we don't let people continue to do wrong things, because it makes us all back off".

"In one case, a mourning ceremony attended by 50 people who violated the lockdown rules resulted in 45 infections," he said concerned.

The extension turns what was originally meant to be a snap lockdown of Australia's most populous city into one of the longest in the country since the start of the pandemic, and could trigger a second recession of the Aus$2 trillion national economy.

To minimize the economic impact, the New South Wales Government plans to lift the ban on unoccupied construction in large parts of Sydney. However, it expands the list of local government areas within the city where the ban will remain in effect due to the prevalence of COVID-19 cases there.

"It is becoming very difficult, day by day, for us to continue to run the same business. We have to survive somehow, and we are trying our best," said Raihan Ahmed, a convenience store owner in Bankstown, one of the affected suburbs. main impact.

Sharp criticism of the handling of COVID-19 as well as the economic impact that has caused political support for Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his party to plummet in the latest polls. The slow COVID-19 vaccination program, policy changes and the supply of doses are lacking, further worsening the government's image.

"There is no other shortcut, there is no other way, we just have to hunker down and move on. All Australians who want to be vaccinated will receive it by the end of the year and I hope, at Christmas we will see an Australia that is very different to what we see now ," he said

For information, launching Worldometers until this Wednesday, Kangaroo Country recorded a total of 33,474 cases of COVID-19 infection, 921 deaths and 29,911 patients recovered since the pandemic began.