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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia on Thursday reported the biggest one-day increase in COVID-19 cases in more than a week, dampening optimism that the strict closure of its second-largest city will soon be lifted.
Authorities said 127 cases of COVID-19 have been detected in the past 24 hours, more than the 109 cases recorded on Wednesday and the biggest one-day jump since August 28.
Most of the cases were detected in the state of Victoria, which reported 113 new cases in the past 24 hours, despite the state capital Melbourne nearing the end of a six-week lockdown.
As a result, state authorities said Australia’s second-largest city, home to 5 million people, may have to continue the restrictions beyond the scheduled end date of September 13.
“I can’t rule out that we have to continue (with some) rules. I just can’t,” State Prime Minister Daniel Andrews told reporters in Melbourne.
In August, Victoria imposed a nightly curfew, tightened restrictions on the movement of people and ordered the closure of much of the local economy to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, reported 12 cases, a day after it posted its biggest one-day increase in new infections for two weeks.
The state of Queensland accounted for the remaining two cases.
Australia has recorded more than 26,000 cases of COVID-19, while the death toll rose to 678 after another 15 people died in Victoria.
Although the strict restrictions have helped prevent the virus from spreading beyond Victoria, they have wreaked havoc on the economy, and official data on Wednesday shows Australia entered its first recession in three decades.
(Reporting by Colin Packham and Renju Jose; Edited by Tom Brown and Lincoln Feast)
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