Sydney virus outbreak spreads in Australia and New Zealand

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian state leader warned Friday that Melbourne may be losing control of a COVID-19 delta variant outbreak that began in Sydney and has also spread to the New Zealand capital.

The fast-moving outbreak was first detected in mid-June in Sydney, Australia's largest city, which has reported more than 600 new infections in each of the last four days.

The virus has spread to Melbourne, the nation’s second-most populous city, and has seeded New Zealand’s first outbreak in six months.

The neighboring nations have succeeded in using lockdowns to stamp out clusters throughout the pandemic. But the delta variant is proving more challenging.

Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews said he is losing hope of eliminating the latest outbreak in Melbourne, which entered its sixth lockdown on Aug. 5.

Victoria reported 55 new community infections on Friday. But most new patients were infectious before they began isolating, making “today a bad day,” Andrews said.

“We are right on the edge of this getting away from us and it’s not because contact tracing aren’t doing everything they can; they are. It’s not because we didn’t lock down fast enough; we did,” Andrews said.

“It’s this delta variant. It’s so wildly infectious it will find every breach of every rule and it will potentially spread because of that,” he said.

A previous outbreak in Melbourne swelled to 725 cases in a day in August last year before a suppression strategy drove daily infections down to zero in October.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Friday she is determined to eliminate the new outbreak from her country.

The virus, first detected in New Zealand’s largest city of Auckland on Tuesday, has spread to the capital,...