Australia’s Sydney Records Deadliest Day Of COVID-19 Pandemic

Sydney: Australia’s biggest city of Sydney recorded its deadliest day of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday as seven people died from the virus in the past 24 hours, surpassing the state’s previous record daily toll from earlier this month.

This was informed by New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Berejiklian said New South Wales has also detected 478 infections, the highest one-day rise since the pandemic begun.

“Our community transmission numbers are disturbingly high,” Berejiklian said.

Authorities also confirmed the death of 15-year-old boy from Sydney, who had pneumococcal meningitis and COVID-19.

The toll was announced as 200 military personnel were deployed across Sydney to set up roadblocks to enforce restrictions of movement. Australia last month deployed 500 troops to help New South Wales.

With only 26% of people above 16 years of age fully vaccinated, Australia is vulnerable to the highly infectious Delta variant that has steadily spread across the country.

While Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Darwin – which begun its curbs on Monday – are all in lockdown, cases have proved stubbornly difficult to suppress.

Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews said Melbourne will now remain in a lockdown until September 2 after recording 22 new COVID-19 cases.