The new outbreaks have put the slow vaccination campaign under scrutiny, which barely has 5% of the 25 million inhabitants of the country fully immunized.
Australia was fighting today to contain several outbreaks of the Delta variant of the coronavirus in different parts of the country, in what some experts describe as the most dangerous stage of the pandemic in the oceanic country since its early days.
The eastern city of Syden and the northern city of Darwin were today both under lockdown, while western Perth and eastern Brisbane decreed the mandatory use of face masks.
In Perth, authorities warned that the city could impose a lockdown after a resident tested positive for coronavirus after being in Sydney, where the current outbreak in Australia began, more than a week ago.
The pandemic was not as cruel to Australia as to other countries, accumulating fewer than 31,000 cases and 910 deaths since it registered the first infections.
However, the new outbreaks have put the slow vaccination campaign under scrutiny, which barely has 5% of the 25 million inhabitants of the country fully immunized.
“The pandemic is still upon us. I certainly understand the frustration of the people … But how should we move forward? Do we give up? Or do we continue to show the same determination as at the beginning,” Prime Minister Scott said today? Morrison.
Speaking in Canberra after a cabinet meeting, Morrison announced that all nursing home workers will need to have at least one dose of the vaccine by September in order to work, the public news network ABC reported.
The decision generated immediate criticism in the press since the vaccination of nursing home workers with at least one dose was supposed to be completed three months ago.
Most of the new cases stem from a limo driver who works for airline crews and who tested positive in mid-June on the Delta variant.
He was not vaccinated and apparently not wearing a mask, and is suspected of being infected while transporting foreign airline workers.
The inhabitants of Sydney, the most populous city in Australia, yesterday began total confinement for two weeks.
The 48-hour confinement of the city of Darwin and its periphery was prolonged this Monday until Friday as the number of infections linked to an isolated gold mine rose to seven.
“The risk increased in the last 24 hours. We are now entering an extremely critical period. We have to continue to confine the time to surround the virus,” said the head of the Government in the northern region of Australia, Michael Gunner.
The authorities also urged the Aboriginal population, who would be more vulnerable to the virus, not to travel to Darwin.
