A curfew was announced Monday for Australia's second-biggest city of Melbourne, as authorities work to stamp out a Delta variant Covid-19 outbreak.
More than five million Melbourne residents will be unable to leave their homes between 9pm and 5am from Monday evening, with essential workers needing permits to be on the streets.
The decision came after a series of street parties, pub crawls and home gatherings over the weekend.
More than eight million people in New South Wales state are under lockdown -- including in Sydney where residents have already been under those restrictions for almost two months.
Australia won global praise for its early pandemic response but strict border closures and other measures have struggled to contain the highly transmissible Delta variant, along with slow vaccine roll-out.
Australia has recorded more than 39,000 cases of Covid-19 and 966 deaths to date in a population of 25 million.
