Australia: after Sydney and Melbourne, Adelaide in turn confined

After Sydney and Melbourne, the city of Adelaide in the south of the country will in turn be confined.

The capital of the state of South Australia will be from Tuesday evening the third major Australian metropolis subject to a containment obligation after five cases of Covid-19 detected in the state.

"From 6:00 p.m. this evening, South Australia is entering containment," said Prime Minister of that state, Steven Marshall.

He specifies that this measure will be in effect for an initial period of seven days.

“We don't do it out of heart, but we think we only have one opportunity to resolve this,” he added.

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14 million Australians out of 25 will be confined as of Tuesday

The Australian authorities had already placed in containment a large area around Sydney as well as the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital.

As of Tuesday, 14 million Australians out of 25 will now be confined in order to stop the progression of the virus.

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The largest current epidemic focus remains that of Sydney, where more than 150 people have been infected since a driver working for airline crews tested positive in mid-June.

Faced with the resurgence of the epidemic, non-essential businesses in Sydney must remain closed and residents of certain neighborhoods are prohibited from leaving.

The country's largest city has been confined since June 26 while Melbourne has been since July 16.

A growing number of cases in the country

Australia has long been praised for its good results in managing the pandemic with a low number of contaminations due in large part to the very strict border closures.

Since the start of the pandemic, Australia has recorded more than 31,800 cases, including 914 deaths.

Today, the number of Covid-19 contaminations is now 113 cases per day on the island-continent.

This figure is still low compared to other countries in the world, but which is a challenge for Australia, which has since the start of the epidemic crisis opted for a “zero cases” strategy with contamination tracing operations.

The vaccination campaign also remains small with 11% of the total population of the country vaccinated.

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