MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA) – Australia recorded no new daily coronavirus community infections on Sunday for the first time in nearly five months, health officials said. This would pave the way for relaxing further social distancing restrictions.
The state of Victoria, a coronavirus hot spot, saw zero new daily infections and no deaths for the second consecutive day.
Australia saw its first day of no transmissions since June 9, Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
Hunt said on his Twitter account, “Thank you to all of our amazing health & public health workers & above all else the Australian people.”
Victoria last week put an end to most of its 111-day lockdown restrictions , considered some of the world’s toughest and longest.
Victoria Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said at a televised press conference, “What allowances come … will absolutely be informed by what this week looks like.”
“To see 50,000 cases a day in France, to see Belgium sending patients outside the country because they’re so overwhelmed – that’s what we might have faced if we hadn’t been able to get on top of it.”
Australia has reported just over 27,500 cases since the pandemic started as it swiftly closed its international borders and imposed social distancing restrictions and widespread testing and tracing.
Australia on Friday gave warning to its citizens not to travel to the United States because of the risk of protest violence and coronavirus.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday reported 9,024,298 cases of new coronavirus, an increase of 99,750 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,009 to 229,109.