Australia's New South Wales state has recorded its biggest daily rise in Covid-19 infections this year, even as residents in several major cities across the country were released from snap lockdowns, Reuters reports.

Sydney, the New South Wales state capital and home to a fifth of Australia's 25 million population, has been hit hardest in a flurry of outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant around the country over the past two weeks.

State Premier Gladys Berejiklian reported 35 new cases, 29 of which were linked to previous cases. That eclipsed the 31 cases reported a day earlier, taking total infections under the current outbreak to more than 250.

A pedestrian wearing a protective face mask walks past light rail platforms devoid of waiting passengers in the city centre at morning commute hour during a lockdown to curb the spread of a coronavirus outbreak in Sydney, Australia. — Reuters/File
A pedestrian wearing a protective face mask walks past light rail platforms devoid of waiting passengers in the city centre at morning commute hour during a lockdown to curb the spread of a coronavirus outbreak in Sydney, Australia. — Reuters/File

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