Sydney breaks another record amid struggle to suppress Delta

Sydney had a record number of Covid-19 infections, accounting for the bulk of cases in new South Wales as Australia’s most populous state battles to contain the spread of the highly infectious delta variant.

The state saw a high of 1,218 daily infections in the 24 hours to 8 p.m. local time on Saturday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters Sunday in Sydney. Six more people died.

Infections in the country’s most populous state have been rising—topping 1,000 for the first time last week—despite a ramped up immunization drive and a lockdown in Sydney since the end of June. The state is about half way to a double-dose vaccination rate of 70%, the threshold Berejiklian has set for people to get back some freedom of movement and begin to live with the virus in the community, she said.

The state’s premier also stressed the importance of vaccination to help keep people out of hospitals. About 800 people are currently hospitalized and 120 are in intensive care units. Given the daily tally of cases, patients with the virus in ICU won’t peak before October, Berejiklian said.

“What is the most relevant number for new South Wales is how many people are vaccinated and how many people we are keeping out of hospital and out of intensive care,” she said.

Hundreds of thousands of people per day are now being inoculated after a slow start to Australia’s rollout, though cases continue to rise in Sydney’s least-affluent south and southwestern suburbs and the west of the state, which has relatively large populations of vulnerable Indigenous people.