:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/IZQVE2ZNJBCGBHJPGAM2WDN474.jpg "Australia extends Sydney lockdown until July 30")
The Australian authorities extended this Wednesday the confinement of the city of Sydney until July 30, which brings together more than 20% of the 25 million inhabitants of the country, due to an outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) linked to the delta variant.
“We need to extend the shutdown for at least another two weeks,” said the head of government of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, when reporting 97 new local infections of the COVID-19, with an undetermined number of cases of unknown origin.
This outbreak, detected in the middle of last month, forced the authorities to decree on June 26 the strict confinement of some 6 million inhabitants of the metropolitan area of Sydney and surrounding communities.
The regrowth of the COVID-19, which supposedly arose in the popular Bondi neighborhood, has spread to other areas of the city, accumulating more than 800 active cases.
The Australian Government announced the day before financial aid for workers and businesses affected by the lockdown, as well as an injection of 17.35 million Australian dollars (12.99 million US dollars or 10.96 million euros) for the services of mental health of New South Wales.
Australia accumulates more than 31,300 cases of the COVID-19 Since the beginning of the pandemic, which includes 912 deaths, and tries to accelerate its vaccination campaign, delayed with respect to the government schedule and which has only been able to administer the full schedule to less than 10 percent of its population.