More than half of Australia’s 25 million people were under lockdown on Tuesday after a third state adopted movement curbs to rein in the highly contagious Delta variant of coronavirus.
Australia’s infections and deaths are well below other developed nations, but its use of lockdowns, prompted by a sluggish vaccination campaign, is putting pressure on the national government, with polls at their lowest in a year and just months before elections are due to be held.
South Australia, a state of 1.8 million, imposed a seven-day lockdown after detecting five infections linked to a returned traveller, just as the neighbouring state of Victoria extended by a week a five-day lockdown that had failed to stop new cases.
“We hate putting these restrictions in place but we believe we have one chance to get this right,” South Australia premier Steven Marshall told reporters.
The largest city of Sydney, where the latest Delta outbreak started before spreading elsewhere, is in the fourth week of a five-week lockdown. Three regional centres were added to areas 250 km (155 miles) inland after a positive test there.
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