Two weeks later, 27 people attending the party tested positive for nCoV, including a 2-year-old child, along with 14 close contacts.
From Sydney, the Delta variant spread across Australia, through flights and people visiting schools, hospitals, hairdressers, even a mass vaccination center.
People lined up outside a vaccination center in Sydney, Australia, on June 24.
This is said to be a sudden turning point for a country that spent most of the past year enjoying the results of fighting Covid-19.
Such an almost completely normal life is said to be something Australian politicians, from Prime Minister Scott Morrison to local officials, are eager to protect.
According to NYTimes commentator Damien Cave, they consider completely preventing Covid-19, at any cost, to be a winning policy.
This scenario has happened in the past.
However, the Delta mutation seems to have turned everything upside down.
The state of New South Wales has avoided the prospect of a complete lockdown in previous outbreaks, including a cluster in December 2020.
Similar situations are being reported around the world, as the Delta strain has spread to at least 85 countries.
Officials and economists are concerned that the social cost of these harsh measures will increase.
Melbourne, which has experienced lockdowns more often than any other city in Australia, is said to be a harbinger of things to come.
Even experts who highlight the economic benefits of Australia’s anti-epidemic strategy also assess that the country’s policymakers have become too dependent on border control and blockade measures, right from the beginning.
People stand in front of the Sydney Opera House, Australia, on June 27.
Richard Holden, an economist at the University of New South Wales Business School, said measurable economic indicators, such as the still-low unemployment rate, overshadowed immeasurable values.
According to Holden, what is especially making Australians increasingly frustrated is the government’s vaccination campaign.
As a result, the vaccine proposed by the University of Queensland failed in early trials, while AstraZeneca was controversial because of the risk of rare blood clotting complications.
The challenge in the next few months for Australia, as well as many other countries, is said to be ensuring that most people are vaccinated against Covid-19.
`This is the first step in ending the policy of completely containing Covid-19. This time we can control the virus, but the task will become more and more difficult,` Catherine Bennett, an epidemiologist at the University of
Even Prime Minister Morrison seems to realize that Australia will eventually need to stop pursuing this approach.
`Our thinking about how to control Covid-19 must change when moving from the pre-vaccination to post-vaccination period,` he said on July 2.
