Sydney extended its lockdown for another week and remains the only area in Australia to do so after nearly half the population was under lockdown last week.
Without COVID-19 vaccines, Sydney extended its lockdown by another week to protect its vulnerable, largely unvaccinated population, the Associated Press reported.
"The reason why we've extended the lockdown is because of a number of cases still infectious in the community, and we extended the lockdown to give us the best chance of not having another lockdown," Berejiklian said. Only 9 percent of Australian adults are fully vaccinated, heightening fears that the Delta variant could quickly spread beyond control.
Last week, almost half Australia's population was locked down with cities on the east, west and north coasts tightening pandemic restrictions due to clusters. Some of those lockdowns were as short as three days.