An infectious diseases expert has declared Australia can't keep going into lockdown to achieve zero cases of community Covid transmission.
Professor Emma McBryde, an epidemiologist with James Cook University, has also predicted Sydney daily case numbers of the more contagious Delta strain would remain in triple digits until at least October.
'My prediction is that Sydney won't drive cases down to zero but what it will do is maintain a small number of cases and, by small I mean a couple of hundred a day or less for another couple of months,' she told the ABC's 7.30 program.
'By then the rest of Australia will have sufficient vaccination and be in a position where we no longer concentrate on cases and we start to look at hospitalisations and deaths and then Sydney will join the rest of Australia at that point.'
An infectious diseases expert has declared Australia can't keep going into lockdown to achieve zero cases of community Covid transmission. Professor Emma McBryde, an epidemiologist with James Cook University, has also predicted Sydney daily case numbers of the more contagious Delta strain would remain in triple digits until at least October
In New South Wales, case numbers have continued to hit new record highs even after Premier Gladys Berejiklian extended the lockdown for another four weeks until August 28.
The numbers on Monday remained high at 209, and on Tuesday stood at 199, with 50 of them infectious in the community.
On Sunday, the state had a record 239 new locally-acquired cases, despite even harsher restrictions in Sydney's west and south-west in the Fairfield, Liverpool, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Parramatta, Blacktown, Campbelltown and Georges River local government areas.
Still, the highest number in NSW since the pandemic began are only a third of the 723 cases Victoria recorded on July 30 last year, following a hotel quarantining debacle in Melbourne.
Professor McBryde, who is based in Townsville, said the case numbers were still low by world standards.
