Australia has suffered its deadliest day from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with authorities reporting 10 fatalities yesterday and a rise in new infections, despite an intensive lockdown effort.
The country’s COVID-19 death toll rose to 155 and the southeastern state of Victoria reported more than 450 new infections in the past 24 hours.
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said that 10 people aged between their 40s and 80s had died, of which seven deaths were linked to outbreaks in aged care facilities.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It is the worst loss of life from the virus in Australia, which has logged 14,000 cases in total, since the disease first emerged, according to a tally compiled by Agence France-Presse.
The number of new cases has remained stubbornly high in the past few days, despite 5 million people in greater Melbourne spending the past two weeks in lockdown.
A total of 459 fresh cases were reported in Victoria yesterday — up from 357 on Saturday. About a dozen more were recorded in other parts of Australia.
“These things change rapidly, but we have to say these numbers are far too high,” Andrews said.
Victoria processed 42,973 tests on Saturday, Andrews said, “far and away the biggest testing result that we’ve seen on a single day.”
He also said he is not planning to extend the lockdown in Melbourne.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court in New South Wales state ruled against a plan to hold a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Sydney this week, citing concerns over the potential spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Black Lives Matter march was planned for tomorrow in central Sydney, with earlier estimates suggesting thousands could attend to protest against indigenous deaths in custody.
Organizers had asked that the demonstration be allowed to go ahead to capitalize on the momentum of the movement in the US and to “keep the pressure” on authorities in Australia.
While “there is a risk of momentum being lost in this campaign if public demonstrations in support of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, in the Australian context, do not continue to be held,” the threat of an escalation in the COVID-19 outbreak is higher, the Supreme Court judgement said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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