SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia recorded its deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday and the biggest daily rise in infections in three days, hoping a second wave that could stabilize the state of Victoria flu.
Victoria reported 21 deaths – two more than the previous deadliest days earlier this week – and 410 new cases in the past 24 hours, ending a run of three consecutive days with new infections among 400.
A cluster of infections in Melbourne, the Victorian capital and the second largest city in Australia, forced authorities last week to set up a night permit, impose restrictions on the daily movements of people and order large parts of the state economy .
Victorian Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said that although the number of cases went down, the impact of the strict new lockdown measures was still visible in the case numbers.
“We all know that a week is not the life cycle of this virus … and our experts remain adamant that this will drive the numbers down,” he told reporters.
Only Victoria and the country’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), reported fresh COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with a total of 428 infections detected in the past 24 hours.
The virus has been effectively eliminated outside Victoria and NSW.
Authorities in NSW are scrambling to detect infections linked to a new cluster at a school in Sydney, which has raised fears of more widespread communications transmission previously known in the country’s largest city.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said companies could avoid additional restrictions to develop further clusters.
“We have certainly given a grace period to companies, to organizations, to various institutions to step up their COVID-secure plans and if they do not, we will have to go a step further,” Berejiklian said in a media briefing.
Australia has just reported more than 22,000 infections and 352 deaths from the virus, far fewer on a per capita basis than many other developed countries.
Report by Renju Jose and Colin Packham; Edited by Stephen Coates and Lincoln Feast.
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