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| Medical staff in Sydney administer drive-through Covid tests as the Australian city endures an outbreak of the Delta variant. Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images |
The Australian state of New South Wales is battling an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant, setting a 2021 record of 77 new cases of the virus on Sunday.
A woman in her 90s died on Saturday in Sydney after testing positive for Covid-19. The state’s premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said case numbers in and around Australia’s biggest city, which is in a three-week lockdown, were expected to rise further in the coming days.
“I’m anticipating the numbers in New South Wales will be greater than 100 tomorrow,” Berejiklian said. “I will be shocked if it is less.”
On Saturday there were 50 cases, which was a record for 2021. This takes the recent outbreak to 566 cases.
South Korea reported 1,324 new coronavirus cases as of midnight on Saturday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said, down from a record 1,378 the day before. Reported cases often dip over weekends with fewer tests conducted, and authorities have warned that cases may continue to rise.
The surge has seen far fewer serious infections than earlier waves, with many of South Korea’s older and more vulnerable residents, vaccinated virus. Overall about 11% of South Korea’s 52 million people have completed vaccination, while 30% have received one dose. The spike is being largely driven by younger unvaccinated people, according to the KDCA.
The surge has prompted officials to mandate the strictest level of social distancing in Seoul and neighboring regions for the first time, starting on Monday. South Korea’s total Covid-19 infections to date stand at 168,046, with 2,043 deaths.
China reported 24 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, down from 26 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said. Twelve of the confirmed new cases were locally transmitted infections in the south-western province of Yunnan. The remainder were imported.
The number of new asymptomatic cases – which China does not classify as confirmed cases – rose to 17 from 16 a day earlier. Of the asymptomatic cases, one was a local transmission recorded in Shaanxi province.
The total of confirmed Covid-19 cases in China stood at 92,039, while the death toll remained at 4,636.
In Europe, the overall number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 745 to 3,736,165, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The reported death toll rose by six to 91,231.
Meanwhile, in Taiwan, the chipmaker TSMC said on Sunday that it was in the middle of the contract signing process to buy Covid-19 vaccine shots from Germany’s BioNTech, the Pfizer vaccine partner. “There are multiple parties. We are in the middle of the contract signing process. We will make announcements once the process is completed,” TSMC said.
