A woman wearing a face mask walks along a quiet Circular Quay in Sydney
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)More than half of Australia’s 25 million people were under lockdown on Tuesday after restrictions were enforced in a third state as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread.
South Australia imposed a seven-day lockdown after identifying five cases linked to a returned traveller, while neighbouring state Victoria extended their five-day snap lockdown which will now end on July 27.
"We hate putting these restrictions in place but we believe we have one chance to get this right," South Australia premier Steven Marshall told reporters.
Three regional centres were added to areas 250 km (155 miles) inland after a positive test there.
Sydney also recorded 78 new cases on Tuesday, down from 98 a day earlier.
At least 21 of the new cases were infectious in the community before being diagnosed.
For Sydney’s lockdown to be eased by the July 30 target date, authorities have said that the figure should be near zero.
"We are seeing more hospitalisations, more admissions to ICU, more people on ventilators - we have to stop the spread of Covid," Kerry Chant, the state’s chief health officer, said in Sydney, referring to intensive care units.
Australia has relied on lockdowns, tough social distancing rules and swift contact tracing to hold infections to a fraction of levels elsewhere.
"The scope and scale between the rest of the world and Australia are immeasurably different and we shouldn’t lose sight of what has been achieved on an extraordinary level," Australian health minister Greg Hunt told reporters.
However, the country is currently experiencing low vaccine rates, with just over 14 per cent of adults fully vaccinated.
Ninety-five people with Covid-19 are in hospital in the state, 27 of them in intensive care and 11 on ventilators, according to Reuters.
The national Covid-19 death toll stands at 915 and just over 32,000 cases.
