Australia's New South Wales state reported its biggest daily rise in locally acquired cases of Covid-19 for the year as officials struggle to stamp out a growing cluster of the highly infectious Delta variant in Sydney.

New South Wales (NSW) reported 38 new local cases, up from 27 a day earlier, as its capital Sydney prepares for a third week of a lockdown, Reuters reported.

“We don't want to prolong the lockdown, we don't want to see Sydney or New South Wales going in and out of lockdown until we have the vast majority of our population vaccinated,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.

Berejiklian implored residents to limit visits to family as data suggested the virus was spreading during such meetings, and urged people with flu-symptoms to take their entire family for Covid-19 tests due to the highly transmissible Delta strain.