JAKARTA - Australian authorities have asked five million Sydneysiders to comply with stay-at-home orders, after the city recorded another record daily COVID-19 infection case.
Hundreds of additional police were deployed to patrol parts of the City of Sydney to enforce lockdown orders, as cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19 spread, which has now led to more than 400 infections.
"New South Wales (the state) is facing the biggest challenge we have faced since the pandemic began," state Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.
"Right now the numbers are not going in the right direction. Please don't leave your house. Don't leave your house unless you absolutely have to," begged Berejiklian.
Forty-four locally acquired cases were reported on Friday in NSW, Australia's most populous state, topping 38 the day before, with 29 of them having spent time in the community while infected.
There are currently 43 cases in hospital in total, with 10 people in intensive care, four of whom require ventilation. The increase in cases came despite Australia's largest city being under a two-week lockdown, which has now been extended to a third week ending July 16.
In Sydney's southwestern suburbs, now the epicenter of the outbreak, streets were nearly deserted on Friday, with a group of police patrolling the outskirts of the city. In order to reduce mobility and interaction, starting Friday night public gatherings are only for two people, residents are only allowed to travel 10 kilometers from their homes
At the same time, Berejiklian also rejected reports it was considering a policy change, to 'living with the virus', citing Australia's low coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine.
"If we choose to live with this, while the vaccination rate is at 9 percent, we will see thousands of hospitalizations and deaths," Berejiklian said.
Successfully handling the COVID-19 wave last year, Australia was one of the countries that was slow in progressing the COVID-19 vaccination process, due to the supply constraints of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the mainstay of the Kangaroo Country.
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday said Pfizer would increase deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccine to about one million doses a week from July 19, more than triple the current shipments.
"That puts us in a very strong place to be able to get this work done as we move towards the end of the year and maybe even sooner," said PM Morrison.
As of this Friday, Australia's total COVID-19 infection cases reached 30,951 cases, with 910 deaths and 29,466 patients declared cured, citing Worldometers.
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