MELBOURNE: Police of Australia guarded the streets and barred transport into Sydney’s central business district on Saturday to prevent a planned anti-lockdown protest, as the country recorded a daily COVID-19 case count that set a new high.

Officials in New South Wales and Victoria recorded a total of 886 cases. New infections have surpassed the pandemic’s previous single-day high of 754 cases set on Thursday.

“We are in a very serious situation here in New South Wales,” state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said. “There is no time now to be selfish, it’s time to think of the broader community and your families.”

For weeks, Sydney, a city of more than 5 million people, has been under extreme lockdown after failing to halt an outbreak that has spread over internal borders and as far as New Zealand.

On Saturday, officials in New South Wales recorded three deaths and 516 patients in hospitals. According to Officials,  76 of the 85 people in intensive care were unvaccinated.

Why more children getting infected with Delta variant in Australia?

While it has been revealed that more children are becoming infected with COVID-19 in Australia and abroad, the reason for this has yet to be proven.

One obvious reason for the increased infection rate among children and teens is that they have the lowest vaccination rates. According to NSW Health statistics, 25% of 15-29-year-olds had gotten one dose of the COVID-19 vaccination.

According to NSW Health data, 25% of 15-29-year-olds have had one dose of COVID-19 vaccination, compared to 78% of 70-79-year-olds. The World Health Organization believes there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that the Delta variant has been specifically targeting children.

Let me be very clear: we are not seeing the Delta variant specifically target children,” WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said at a press conference a few weeks ago.

“There was some suggestion that the variants were specifically targeting children, but that actually is not the case. What we are seeing is that the variants will target those who are socially mixing,” Van Kerkhove said.

“What we do see is that the variants that are circulating will infect people if they are not taking the proper precautions,” she said, referring to measures such as physical distancing and avoiding gathering in poorly ventilated, crowded indoor spaces.

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