The Australian state of New South Wales has extended its COVID-19 lockdown for a further week, until midnight Friday, July 16.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said the decision was made because the Delta strain is a "game-changer" and has been highly contagious in the state.
"The reason why the New South Wales government has taken this position is because we don’t want to be in a situation where we are constantly having to move between lockdown, no lockdown, lockdown, no lockdown," she said.
"What we want to do is give us our best chance of making sure this is the only lockdown we have until the vast majority of our citizens are vaccinated."
This comes as NSW Health reported 27 new local cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
"Of these locally acquired cases, 18 are linked to a known case or cluster – seven are household contacts and 11 are close contacts – and the source of infection for nine cases remains under investigation," the statement said.
"Of today's 27 new locally acquired cases, 13 were in isolation throughout their infectious periods and seven cases were in isolation for part of their infectious period. Seven cases were infectious in the community."
NSW also reported one new case which was acquired from overseas.
There are currently 37 COVID-19 cases in hospital, with seven people in intensive care, two of which are requiring ventilation.
Berejiklian said she expects the number of community cases to continue to grow, The Guardian reported.
"I can foreshadow overnight that we’ve had a number of cases, more than we would like to have seen, so I’m anticipating that tomorrow’s number will be higher than what we have seen today but they are at the moment concentrated in three local government areas."
