Sydney (Australia), Jun 23 (EFE) .- The travel bubble between New Zealand and the Australian state of New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney, was suspended for at least three days since Wednesday following an outbreak of covid-19.
Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, recorded 16 new local infections in the past 24 hours.
The measure was implemented after the positive for covid-19 of a person who returned to Sydney on Monday after traveling to Wellington, the New Zealand capital, was known the day before.
The New Zealand authorities adopted greater social distancing measures for the capital and the mandatory use of masks in public transport, among others, from today until Sunday.
Australia, which like New Zealand are among the countries that have best managed the pandemic, is facing an outbreak with the Delta variant, which was detected last week in the touristy neighborhood of Bondi, with a total of 31 infections in Sydney.
To try to stop the expansion of this highly contagious variant, the New South Wales authorities imposed social restriction measures in the Sydney metropolitan area, with 5.3 million people, and other surrounding populations as of this Wednesday.
These measures limit indoor meetings to a maximum of 5 people, impose the use of masks indoors, limit the capacity of commercial premises, while other Australian jurisdictions have also prohibited travel from Sydney.
The head of government of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, asked at a press conference that people who live in neighborhoods where COVID-19 cases have been detected avoid traveling outside the city.
Australia, which has been living a normal practice for months that is only broken with short and localized confinements to quickly control outbreaks, accumulates about 30,400 cases, including 910 deaths, and has vaccinated about 5.7 million inhabitants, of which more than 864,000 have received the complete guideline.
New Zealand, for its part, has registered 2,723 patients since the beginning of the pandemic, including 26 deaths, while it has already vaccinated more than 567,000 people, including 324,500 with the full schedule, and will start the campaign of inoculation to the general population.
