Australia’s Victoria state reports five new Covid-19 cases, Delta cluster grows

MELBOURNE: Australia’s second-most populous state Victoria on Saturday reported a small increase in locally acquired Covid-19 cases as authorities hunted for the source of a highly infectious variant that has been detected in a new cluster.

Five new local cases were reported, taking Victoria’s total to 70 in the latest outbreak, including one recovered case, as the state capital Melbourne entered its second weekend of a hard lockdown, due to end on June 10. Curbs were eased for the rest of the state on Friday.

Saturday’s count was up from four new locally acquired cases on Friday.

Authorities on Friday were alarmed after detecting the highly infectious Delta Covid-19 virus variant for the first time in Australia, sparking concerns cases could spike.

The new Delta variant cluster has grown to nine active cases, up by two from Friday including a case transmitted at a workplace.

“The next few days will be critical, because we’ll see where this one goes,” state testing commander Jeroen Weimar told reporters.

The Delta variant, which has been classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as among the four Covid-19 variants of concern due to evidence that it spreads more easily, is one of the virus variants first detected in India.