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Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, is going to enter a hard two-week lockdown on Saturday night as authorities try to contain a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta coronavirus variant.
More than a million people in downtown Sydney and the city’s eastern suburbs were already under lockdown due to the outbreak.
However, the health authorities said they needed to expand the lockdown after more Covid-19 cases were recorded, with exposure sites increasing beyond the initial areas of concern.
The lockdown, announced by New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian, will also include the regions of Blue Mountains, Central Coast, and Wollongong, which surround Sydney.
“We’re never afraid to take a decision we need to keep our citizens safe,” Berejikilan said. “Unfortunately this is a situation where we absolutely have to.”
The curbs on Sydney are the latest in a streak of short but hard lockdowns that have been imposed in Australia’s cities in recent months to fight small outbreaks of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the state recorded 29 cases up to 8 pm on Friday, including 17 that had been announced Friday morning. Only 12 of those had been in isolation while infectious.
