Australia vows financial aid as Sydney lockdown continues

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian government officials on Tuesday announced added financial support for businesses and households as Sydney appeared increasingly likely to enter a fourth week of lockdown due to coronavirus clusters.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she would announce on Wednesday whether Sydney’s 5 million residents would remain locked down beyond the three-week mark on Friday.

She had said the 24-hour record of 122 new cases recorded on Sunday made lifting the lockdown on Friday “almost impossible.”

No one knew how long the lockdown would last, Berejiklian said.

“What we do know is that we have the financial support there so that individuals and families and businesses don’t have to stress and they know that for the duration of the lockdown, the support will be there,” she told reporters.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the presence in Sydney of the delta variant, which is thought to be more contagious, had escalated the pandemic danger.

“The New South Wales outbreak has proved to be more severe, more dangerous, and it’s in the national interest that we now put in place an upgraded set of arrangements for cooperation with the states and territories,” Morrison said of the disaster funding deal.

The daily infection tally in New South Wales dropped to 89 on Tuesday, but authorities remain concerned that 21 of those infected with the delta variant had been in the community while contagious.

Australia has recorded three COVID-19 deaths this year. A man, aged in his 70s, died on Monday in Sydney’s eastern suburbs where the current cluster began last month, officials said.

A woman in her 90s from southwest Sydney died in a Sydney hospital on Saturday, a day after testing positive...