SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s Victoria state, which emerged from a strict lockdown earlier this week, recorded one new community case of COVID-19 on Saturday, the government said via Twitter.
Investigations are underway as to how the person contracted the infection, authorities said.
The outbreak, which triggered the two-week snap lockdown late last month, has now seen 91 cases since May 24.
New South Wales, the country’s most populous state, and neighbouring Queensland are on high alert after an infected woman and her husband travelled from Victoria through several country towns in both states.
With no new infections on Saturday, New South Wales, which includes the largest city, Sydney, has not reported any locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in more than a month, while Queensland last reported cases in late March.
Australia has fared much better than many other developed countries during the pandemic, with over 22,300 local COVID-19 cases and 910 deaths since March 2020, mostly in Victorian aged-care homes. Snap lockdowns, internal border controls and tough social distancing rules have helped it contain prior outbreaks.
(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by William Mallard)
