COVID Down Under: Victoria cases peak; Melbourne lockdown ending
Neighboring New Zealand also reports biggest rise in Delta cases in 6 weeks
SYDNEY—COVID-19 infections in Australia’s Victoria hit a pandemic record on Thursday as Melbourne, the state capital, looks to exit its lockdown next week, several days ahead of plan, helped by a faster-than-expected vaccine uptake.
The surge in daily cases comes as Victoria nears the 70 percent threshold for double-dose vaccinations among eligible adults, when authorities have promised to end a monthslong lockdown, against the original Oct. 26 forecast.
Meanwhile, New Zealand reported its biggest rise in COVID-19 infections in six weeks, with all cases detected in Auckland, raising prospects of a further extension of lockdown restrictions in the country’s largest city beyond next week.
Some 1.7 million people in Auckland are under strict stayhome orders until Monday as officials look to stamp out the highly infectious Delta outbreak, the first major spate of community cases in the country since early in the pandemic.
City at the center
Australia’s Victoria state logged 2,297 new cases on Thursday, the highest number of any state or territory in the country since the pandemic began. Eleven new deaths were recorded.
Most new cases were detected in Melbourne, with the city now clearly at the center of the country’s Delta outbreak.
Sydney, where the first case was detected in mid-June, continued a downward trend in new cases. Daily infections in New South Wales eased further to 406 on Thursday, the majority in Sydney, well down from the state’s pandemic high of 1,599 hit in early September.
Forecasts beaten
Sydney could enjoy more freedoms from Monday, beating forecasts by a week, as the proportion of fully vaccinated people above 16 is expected to top 80 percent this weekend.
The city came out of a lockdown of more than 100 days earlier this week.
Delta has accounted for about 77 percent of Australia’s 136,000 cases. Total deaths stand at 1,495 since the pandemic began.
New Zealand deputy prime minister Grant Robertson said the surge in case numbers in Auckland was not unexpected “but they are rising more quickly,” and blamed illegal home gatherings for the spike.
A total of 71 new local cases were reported in the country, all detected in Auckland, up from 55 a day earlier.
About 2.49 million New Zealanders have been fully vaccinated, or about 59 percent of the eligible population, with officials promising to end lockdowns once 90 percent are vaccinated.
Even with the Delta outbreak, New Zealand has recorded only 4,472 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 28 deaths during the pandemic, far lower than many comparable countries.