Australian State Sees 478 New Infections

SYDNEY (AP) —
A lone passenger waits on a train platform at the quiet Central Station in the city center during a lockdown to curb the spread of a coronavirus disease outbreak in Sydney, Aug. 12. (Reuters/Loren Elliott)

Australia’s most populous state on Monday reported its worst day of the pandemic with 478 new COVID-19 infections and seven deaths.

The previous record daily tally in New South Wales was 466 new cases reported on Saturday.

Two of the dead had taken a single dose of a two-shot vaccine. The rest were unvaccinated, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

Only 26% of Australians aged 16 and older had been fully vaccinated by Saturday. Australia has one of the slowest vaccine rollouts among wealthy countries, which is making the Delta variant outbreak particularly dangerous.

The first shipment of one million Pfizer doses that Australia bought from Poland arrived in Sydney overnight Sunday.

Residents aged 16 to 39 in Sydney’s worst-affected suburbs will be given 530,000 of the new doses, the government said. This age group was responsible for most of the virus spread.

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