Millions of Sydney residents woke up Sunday to the first full day of a two-week lockdown as Australia tries to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious mutant Delta.

The authorities initially imposed restrictions on the movement of people in Sydney’s business district and the wealthy eastern suburbs, but the rapid spread of cases in other areas prompted more drastic action on Saturday evening.

Announcing the measures, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said health experts had advised that a shorter lockdown – which has proven effective in other Australian cities in recent months – would not be enough to contain the widening focus.

More than 110 cases of corona have been recorded since it was confirmed that a driver who was transporting international airline crews had the highly contagious delta mutant in mid-June.

“Given the extent of the infection of this mutated virus, we expect that the number of infections is likely to increase in the next few days, beyond what we saw today,” Berejiklian told reporters Sunday.

The discovery of this outpost came as a shock to the city, whose residents returned to their normal lives relatively after months, during which only a few local cases were recorded.

Under the restrictions in Sydney, people will have to stay at home for at least two weeks, and only go out to buy essential goods, get medical care, exercise, go to school or if they are unable to work from home.

Anyone outside the lockdown area who had visited Sydney from Monday was also instructed to adhere to a 14-day quarantine period.

Australia was among the best performing countries in the world in limiting the spread of Corona.

AFP