Daily COVID-19 Infection Cases Still High, New South Wales Adds Military Personnel To Monitor Lockdown

Illustration of the lockdown in Australia. (Wikimedia Commons/Advanstra)

JAKARTA - The State Government of New South Wales plans to formally apply for additional military personnel, to help enforce lockdowns and mobility restrictions, amid efforts to combat the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

The addition of these troops, to prevent wider deployment to regional areas. The move comes as Australia's capital, Canberra, 260 km (160 miles) southwest of Sydney, announced a one-week rapid lockdown beginning Thursday evening, after reporting the first locally acquired COVID-19 case in a year.

Australia is struggling to contain the spread of a very fast-spreading outbreak of the Delta variant, which has left two of the country's largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne under strict lockdown for weeks.

"We are making sure not to leave any stone unturned in terms of additional (military) resources", New South Wales state prime minister Gladys Berejiklian said at a conference in Sydney.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Peter Dutton said the New South Wales Government indicated it would soon formally request additional military support.

Previously, about 580 unarmed army personnel had helped police enforce home quarantine for affected families in Sydney's hardest-hit suburbs.

Several regional cities scattered across New South Wales have also been forced into swift lockdowns after new cases, raising fears of the virus spreading out of control.

Lockdown rules were tightened in three other local council areas in Sydney, restricting the movement of people within 5 km (3 miles) of their homes.

Ironically, despite seven weeks of lockdown, Sydney's daily COVID-19 infection cases remain near record highs. This Thursday, New South Wales reported 345 new locally acquired cases, up from the previous day's cases of 344.

Separately, neighboring Victoria State on Thursday reported 21 new locally acquired cases, up from 20 a day earlier, as 5 million residents of Melbourne, the state capital, prepared to enter its second week of lockdown.

Yesterday, authorities decided to extend the lockdown in Melbourne for another seven days until next August 19.

To note, Australia recorded a better record than other developed countries, with a total of around 37.700 cases of infection and 946 deaths, and almost free of COVID-19.

However, there have been outbreaks in Sydney and Melbourne due to the spread of the Delta variant, as well as the slow pace of the COVID-19 vaccination program, which is feared to make Australia vulnerable to a new wave of infections. To date, only about 24 percent of Australians have received the complete COVID-19 vaccine.