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Sydney’s city centre and the eastern suburbs of Australia’s largest cities, including Bondi Beach, will be locked down for a week starting at midnight on Friday as the authorities are working to contain the city’s highly contagious Delta COVID-19 virus surge.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA), which represents doctors, said that this was not enough and called for a complete lockdown of the country’s largest city to prevent the spread of the virus and possible death.
New South Wales (NSW) Governor Gladys Berekiklian told reporters in Sydney that people who have lived or worked in Sydney’s four local government committee areas in the past two weeks have been ordered to stay at home except for emergency reasons. .
People are only allowed to leave home for basic work or education, medical reasons, grocery shopping or outdoor sports.
“We don’t want to see this situation lasting for several weeks, we hope this situation will end soon,” Berejiklian said.
Only on Wednesday, Berejiklian announced some movement restrictions Cover the Greater Sydney area to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
Despite the lockdown, Berejiklian urges affected Sydney residents not to panic buying.
“[There’s] no need. You can go out and buy anything you need at any time of the day. We do not have a curfew, we do not have similar things. “
The authorities stated that they were “concerned” about the potential super-spreader incident in a salon between June 15 and 23. Three employees of the salon were infected and at least 900 customers visited the incident.
Officials issued a health alert overnight to more than a dozen new sites scattered in Sydney, which is home to one-fifth of Australia’s 25 million people, because the total number of infections in the epidemic exceeds 60.
As of Friday, Australia has reported about 30,400 infections and 910 deaths-a low number compared to most other countries.
Restriction extended to July
New South Wales has postponed calls for a strict lockdown and instead enforced masks in all indoor places including the Sydney office, restricted residents of seven parliamentary areas from leaving the city, and restricted family gatherings to five or less.
These restrictions were originally scheduled to end on Wednesday and are now extended to midnight on July 2.
22 local cases were reported on Friday, the largest increase in the number of infections since a limousine driver transporting overseas crew members in Bondi discovered the first case last Wednesday.
A total of 19 of these cases are related to known infections, and the other 3 cases are under investigation.
AMA Chairman Omar Khorshid said that the latest restrictions are “not enough” and urged officials to put the entire city under lockdown.
Khorshid warned officials that the latest outbreak in Sydney might get out of control and reminded officials that the COVID-19 wave that broke out in Melbourne last year caused more than 800 deaths.
It is simple and obvious to the rest of the world. You can either get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible-or get in and out of lockdown.Sydney now feels the consequences of Australia’s lack of urgency for our vaccine launch
— Tim Soutphommasane (@timsout) June 25, 2021
Khorshid said: “What happened in Melbourne was that they tried to move slowly last year but failed to lead, which resulted in death… This is not allowed in Sydney.”
The epidemic prompted New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to postpone his planned visit to Australia in early July.
“We postponed the Prime Minister’s trade visit to later this year,” the Prime Minister’s spokesperson said.
New Zealand has suspended the tourism bubble between the capital Wellington and Sydney To curb the spread of the virus.
Lockdown, rapid contact tracing, strict social distancing rules and high community compliance have largely helped Australia quell the previous epidemic and keep its COVID-19 number at a low level, just over 30,400 Cases and 910 deaths.
After other states restored strict border rules in response to the latest outbreak, New South Wales has effectively isolated from the rest of the country, including a total ban on tourists from suburbs hit by the virus in Sydney.
Authorities in neighboring Queensland and Victoria said on Friday that several passengers from Sydney tried to enter the state by air without exemption and they were sent back to Sydney.
With the exception of the two exceptions announced on Thursday, Victoria has not reported any new local COVID-19 cases, which may be related to the Sydney outbreak. Two local cases were found in Queensland overnight, both in home quarantine.
Due to COVID-related restrictions, the Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe’s meeting of the Australian Banking Association scheduled to be held in Sydney next week has been postponed by the organizers.
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