SYDNEY (Reuters) -Downtown Sydney and the city’s eastern suburbs, which include Bondi Beach, will go into a one week lockdown from midnight Friday as authorities struggle to contain a spike in the highly contagious Delta COVID-19 virus in the city.
People who live or work in four local government council areas in Sydney have been ordered to stay at home except for urgent reasons, New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney on Friday.
People are allowed to leave their homes only for essential work, education, grocery shopping or outdoor exercise.
“We don’t want to see this situation linger for weeks, we would like to see this situation end sooner rather than later,” Berejiklian said.
Twenty-two local cases were reported on Friday, the biggest rise in infections since the first case was detected in Bondi last Wednesday in a limousine driver who transported an overseas airline crew.
Total infections have now top 60 in Sydney as the virus spreads across the city, home to a fifth of Australia’s 25 million population.
(Reporting by Renju Jose; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Michael Perry)
