Australia is widely seen as being a country that has had good success in controlling Covid-19. The country of close to 26 million people has had a little over 30,000 cases and less than 1,000 total deaths. Urgent actions like lockdowns and curbs on foreign arrivals were seen as having enabled the country to avoid the worst of the pandemic. It is, therefore, with surprise that many greeted the news that its biggest city, Sydney, was going into a two-week lockdown till July 9. As it turns out, the fresh restrictions were prompted by fears over a fresh surge of infections with the Delta variant.
How Did Sydney Decide To Bring Back Restrictions?
The last time any sort of curbs were operational in Sydney, the capital of the New South Wales province on the country’s east coast, was in December last year. The province has had a total of about 5,500 cases during the entire duration of the pandemic so far, about a sixth of the country’s total. But robust containment measures had allowed Australia in general to return to a semblance of normalcy this year.
But the country has also been noted for putting in place severe restrictions to deal with any new rise in cases. According to reports, the government of New South Wales, which had 79 active cases at the end of the week, “was reluctant to impose the lockdown” in Sydney but did so after health experts warned against a fresh rise in cases. In May, after they identified 26 local cases, authorities in Melbourne, which is in the state of Victoria, rolled out a fourth state-wide lockdown, closing schools, most private businesses, and banning public gatherings.
"The vast majority of Australian states take this approach… As soon as there’s even a single case, they move to very restrictive practices very quickly," Marc Stears, director of the Sydney Policy Lab at the University of Sydney, was quoted as telling Fortune magazine.
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