Australia's COVID-19 crisis continues to worsen, with New South Wales' outbreak expanding out of control and Victoria announcing its largest spike in cases in a year.
New South Wales recorded another 1116 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, as well as four new deaths - all in women who hadn't received a vaccine.
The new case figures are a slight drop from Tuesday's, but here have now been more than 22,000 locally acquired cases and 100 COVID-19 related deaths in the state since June 16, when this outbreak first started.
Meanwhile Victoria announced another 120 cases on Wednesday - up from 76 the previous day. The increase marks the largest spike in daily cases in the state in over a year.
It's a major blow for Victoria as Premier Daniel Andrews prepares to give an update on a potential easing of lockdown restrictions later in the day.
Of the new cases, 64 are linked to known outbreaks and 56 are mystery cases, while two people who had contracted COVID-19 died.
Wednesday's figures mark the highest daily COVID-19 case increase since August 26 last year, when Victoria was in the grips of its second wave and 149 cases were recorded.
On Tuesday night, senior ministers met to nut out a new plan to suppress COVID-19, which is believed to involve targets that trigger the staged relaxation of restrictions.
Andrews has said this will provide a roadmap out of lockdown, but warned his announcement on Wednesday would not trigger major changes to the current stay-at-home orders.
Some of the rules that could be eased include the reopening of playgrounds and removal of the state's nightly curfew, 9News reports.
In the ACT, another 23 new locally acquired case were recorded, 14 of which are linked to other cases and 11 of which were in in the community for at least part of their full infectious period.
