CANBERRA: Australia's capital Canberra will remain locked down until there are no more COVID-19 infections in the city, a government leader said on Friday.
The Australian Capital Territory, which comprises Canberra and two villages, was locked down for a week after a man tested positive on Thursday.
The tally of infections rose to six on Friday, with more than 1,800 people identified as close contacts of the original case since he became infectious, officials said.
Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the lockdown would last until all new cases had been in isolation throughout their entire infectious period.
"We would want to see no additional community transmission, we want to go back to zero," Barr said.
The recent infections are the first cases of community transmission in the city of 460,000 since July 10 last year.
New South Wales reports daily COVID-19 record
SIDNEY: The government of Australia's most populous state on Friday reported a daily record 390 new locally-acquired COVID-19 infections and warned that the high infection rate would continue for days.
Two people had died overnight, bringing the death toll in New South Wales from an outbreak of the delta variant first detected in Sydney in mid-June to 38.
The previous highest infection tally was 356 reported on Tuesday.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at least 60 of the new cases had been infectious in the community before they were isolated.
"I anticipate, given the large number of cases we've had in the last few days, that unfortunately, this trend will continue for at least the next few days, Berejiklian said. I'm not going to shy away from the fact that increasing case numbers is a horrible situation and not one we want to be in. But please be reassured that our absolute commitment is to reduce those case numbers whilst we're increasing the vaccination rate," she added.
Sydney has been in lockdown since June 26 and the government had hoped that the spread would be halted by Aug 28.