Sydney to enter lockdown until July 9

Sydney and some surrounding areas will start a two-week COVID-19 lockdown on Saturday as authorities struggle to restrain a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant that has grown to 80 cases.

“Even though we don’t want to impose burdens unless we absolutely have to, unfortunately, this is a situation where we have to,” said New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

“The best health advice today is that it should be for two weeks, but if there is any massive improvement ahead of that time, of course, we’ll evaluate that,” the premier said. “We do need to brace ourselves for potentially larger number of cases in the following days and that’s why it’s so important that we take action now.”