Australia surpasses 1,000 daily cases 1st time in pandemic

Sydney, Australia, Aug 26 (EFE).- Australia exceeded 1,000 daily Covid-19 infections Thursday for the first time since the start of the pandemic in the midst of its biggest wave due to the delta variant.

As they race to speed up vaccinations, health authorities announced 1,130 new infections, of which 1,029 occured in New South Wales, the epicenter of the country’s epidemic.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Thursday that as of Sep. 13, some restrictions on confinement in the state will be lifted to homes that have all their members vaccinated.

Berejiklian said they will be allowed to perform outdoor activities in addition to the sports hour that applies to all, and that the measure seeks to balance security in the face of the pandemic with the psychological well-being of families. This follows a confinement that has lasted since Jun. 26 in Sydney and surrounding areas.

“We know that meetings are what families miss the most,” the premier said at the daily press conference on the pandemic.

At the same time, she was optimistic about the rate of vaccinations, having exceeded 6.2 million inoculations in the state.

The central and state governments hope to be able to achieve between 70 and 80 percent of the vaccination of their population to relax restrictions and confinements and open international borders, closed since March 2020.

So far more than 6.6 million Australians, or 32.3 percent of those aged 16 and over in the country, have received the full course.

After closing its borders and implementing early lockdowns, Australia kept Covid-19 at bay, but the delta variant first detected in India is being more difficult to control and has shot the accumulated infections in the country to more than 46,000, including 986 deaths.

Authorities have assumed they will have to abandon their strategy of total elimination of Covid-19 and learn to live with the coronavirus, perhaps indefinitely.

“We accept that (the variant) delta is here, we accept that trying to achieve zero infections throughout the nation, especially when restrictions are lifted and people live freely, will be an impossible task,” Berejiklian said last weekend. EFE

wat-grc/lds