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Two Australian states will come out of lockdown on Wednesday night, as the authorities believe they have suppressed clusters of the infectious Delta variant. But in Sydney, the country’s biggest city, an outbreak that has swelled to 2,000 cases shows no signs of abating.
Starting on Thursday, shops and other businesses will be allowed to reopen in Victoria State, which includes Melbourne, although masks will still be required indoors and outdoors and a ban on at-home visitors will remain in place. A two-week lockdown, which aimed to contain a cluster that grew to 200 cases, had followed a similar lockdown in May.
The state’s premier, Daniel Andrews, celebrated the news on Tuesday, saying: “We have seen off two Delta outbreaks. I don’t think there’s a jurisdiction in the world that has been able to achieve that, and every Victorian should be proud of that.”
Restrictions were also set to be lifted in South Australia, which locked down a week ago after a handful of cases.
Case numbers continue to surge in New South Wales, which is in a fifth week of lockdown as officials struggle to battle an outbreak centered in the Sydney area that has led to 10 deaths. On Tuesday, the state reported 172 new cases, the most in a day since the outbreak began.
The state’s premier, Gladys Berejiklian, expressed concern that the measures were not enough to halt the spread of the virus, which was still being transmitted among essential workers and within households. She said that further measures to reduce transmission could be announced this week, and that officials would redouble efforts to get more people vaccinated. Only 13 percent of Australia’s population has received both doses of a Covid vaccine, according to New York Times data.
The authorities were also bracing for more infections after large anti-lockdown protests over the weekend in several cities, where photos showed many demonstrators not wearing masks. Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the protesters “selfish” and “self-defeating.”
In Sydney, where a protest drew about 3,500 people, the police made 63 arrests and issued more than 100 fines. The authorities warned that a protest reportedly planned for next weekend “won’t be tolerated again.”
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