Australian city of Sydney extends lockdown by 2 weeks amid Delta outbreak

Australian authorities on Wednesday said they would extend a lockdown of the country's most populous city, Sydney, by two weeks after reporting a rise in new COVID-19 cases as it battles an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant.

Australian authorities on Wednesday said they would extend a lockdown of the country's most populous city, Sydney, by two weeks after reporting a rise in new COVID-19 cases as it battles an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant. The state of New South Wales, which had a lockdown in Sydney scheduled to end on July 16, reported 97 new cases of the virus in the prior 24 hours, up from 89 new cases the previous day.

"We need to extend the lockdown at least a further two weeks, from Friday 16th of July to Friday the 30th of July," said state premier Gladys Berejiklian at a televised news conference. "The current settings in terms of what people can't do won't change for at least two weeks."