Australia extends capital lockdown for another month

Sydney, Australia, Sep 14 (EFE).- Australia on Tuesday extended the lockdown of capital Canberra for another month to stop the transmission of Covid-19, and maintained stay-at-home orders for Sydney and Melbourne.

“We are still recording cases where the source of transmission is unknown, and cases where people have been infectious in the community,” said the head of the Australian Capital Territory, Andrew Barr, at a press conference.

The extension of the lockdown, which began in mid-August and will run until Oct. 15, came as the state registered 22 new infections Tuesday, and this week it hopes to achieve a 50 percent vaccination rate among its eligible population.

Australia, where the various regional governments debate the strategy of suppression of the virus and the progressive reopening with high vaccination rates, intends to begin the phase of deconfinement once 70 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

The country also maintains lockdowns in Sydney, since June 26, and Melbourne, since the beginning of August, among other rural areas.

In New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney, 1,127 local infections and two deaths were reported on Tuesday, while in Victoria, whose capital is Melbourne, 445 cases and two deaths were reported.

Since the start of the pandemic, Australia has accumulated almost 77,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 1,100 deaths, and has fully vaccinated more than 40 percent of its population. EFE

wat/tw