Sydney Lockdown, June – July 2021
As of 6th July 2021, the Greater Sydney, Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong, and Shellharbour in New South Wales, Australia are under two-week stay-at-home orders. After the previous Sydney lockdown marked a success, Sydneysiders, including myself, had been lucky to lead a relatively normal life until a cluster in Bondi started growing around the middle of the last month.
Australia has been successful in controlling the spread of COVID-19, mainly due to its strict border measures. However, there have been a few outbreaks that caused Sydney lockdown. Some of them are:
- Crossroads outbreak: the first case recorded on 10th July, 2020
- Avalon outbreak: the first case recorded on 17th December, 2020
- Bondi outbreak: the first case recorded on 17th June, 2021.
This infographic displays how each outbreak grew differently in the first two weeks, borrowing data from COVID-19 in Australia.
Bondi Cluster Outnumbered the Others in Two Weeks
Looking at the number of cases in the first week after the first case was recorded, Bondi outbreak seemingly started off as a small cluster. Avalon outbreak saw the quickest spread, with 101 cases in the seven days, while Crossroads 38.
Being close to the CBD, however, Bondi cluster had a tough time to contain the spike in the week two. The number of Bondi cases jumped up to 178 in the first two weeks, surpassing the numbers for Crossroads and Avalon.
Good News – Improvement in Linking Cases
There has been good news in Bondi. The linking of cases has improved for Bondi outbreak since Crossroads. In Crossroads cluster, there was a total of 120 cases in the week two, with 12 unlinked cases. For Bondi cluster, there was only 9 cases ‘under investigation’ out of 178 cases.
Bad News – More Infectious Delta Variant
However, good news comes with bad news. Unlike previous outbreaks, Bondi outbreak is dealing with a new variant, the Delta variant. The Delta variant seems to be the most transmissible strain so far. An investigation is seeing a very fleeting contact, which is possibly five to 10 seconds, in some cases in Bondi cluster.
It may be fair to say that it was a right call to implement Sydney lockdown early, given the virus is more infectious, despite the small kickoff.
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If you are interested in this topic, it may be worth checking out other infographics on COVID-19 here.
