Australian capital reports record number of COVID-19 cases

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) on Tuesday morning recorded 30 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19, a new record number for the national capital, on the 12th full day of its lockdown.

It takes the number of active cases associated with this outbreak in Canberra to 167, including four being treated in hospital.

Of Tuesday's new cases, 13 were in quarantine for their entire infectious period and the source of five infections is unknown.

Andrew Barr, chief minister of the ACT, said it was too early to know if the lockdown would be extended beyond Sept. 2 but that the number of people infected in the community was troubling.

"The reason we are in lockdown is to reduce the transmission potential," he told reporters.

"The more Canberrans who are vaccinated, the better protected our community will be from the virus and from the decisions of other governments that are beyond the control of the ACT government."

The ACT Health Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said that while the number of new cases might be a shock to the community, authorities were not surprised.

"Specifically of these new cases today, I can confirm that out of the 30, 25 can be linked to known cases or ongoing clusters," she said.

"Please people do not panic. We are heading in the right direction. We just need to keep doing it for a bit longer."

As of Monday afternoon, there had been 44,922 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and the number of cases reported in the previous 24 hours was 909, most of which were locally acquired, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health.

On Tuesday morning, New South Wales (NSW), Australia's most populous state with Sydney as the capital city, reported 753 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19. And Victoria, the second-most populous state with Melbourne as the capital city, reported a further 50 new local cases.

So far, about half the Australian population in NSW, Victoria, and ACT was still in lockdown.