Australia's New South Wales State has recorded its biggest daily rise in COVID-19 infections this year, even as residents in several major cities across the country were released from snap lockdowns.
Sydney, the New South Wales state capital and home to a fifth of Australia's 25 million population, has been hit hardest with outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant over the past two weeks.
They have reported 35 new cases, 29 of which were linked to previous cases.
That surpassed the 31 cases reported a day earlier, taking total infections under the current outbreak to more than 250.
Lockdowns, swift contact tracing and tough social distancing rules have helped Australia to suppress previous outbreaks but the fast-moving Delta strain has alarmed authorities amid a slow nationwide vaccination drive.
[Source: Reuters]
