New confinements in Australia over Covid-19 spread

Sydney, Australia, Jun 30 (EFE).- The remote city of Alice Springs, with 25,000 inhabitants and a large Aboriginal population, will be confined from Wednesday in Australia, where the confinement affects more than half of its 25 million inhabitants over the spread of Covid-19.

Since the weekend, authorities have implemented brief and localized confinements whenever they detect a resurgence of infections, which have skyrocketed due to the presence of the delta variant of the coronavirus.

Authorities said the measure, in force for three days, was taken as a precaution after a miner, who later tested positive for Covid-19, spent about seven hours at city’s airport.

Authorities reported 22 new infections Wednesday in New South Wales, whose capital Sydney — the country’s most populous city — has a strict confinement in force until Jul. 9. Five infections were repoted in South Australia and three in Queensland.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was the target of criticism Wednesday from regional governors as a result of the inoculation campaign with the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Annastacia Palaszczuk, head of the Queensland regional government, and Mark McGowan, her Western Australian counterpart, publicly disapproved of Morrison’s announced recommendation to vaccinate people under 40 with the AstraZeneca drug.

Palaszczuk said the decision was not made during the national cabinet meeting and added that she would continue to prioritize the Pfizer vaccine to Queenland citizens under 40, rather than AstraZeneca.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risks and that all people are informed about possible side effects.

Since the start of the pandemic, Australia has accumulated more than 30,500 Covid-19 infections, with 910 deaths, and has vaccinated just over 1.3 million with the full dosage, while more than 25 percent of the population has received one jab. EFE

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