Australia saw a record daily number of new coronavirus cases this year on Saturday, with the country's most populous states of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland recording a total of 361 cases of the highly infectious Delta variant.

With about 15 million people in the three states, or 60 per cent of Australia's population, under a strict lockdown, the country also reported five coronavirus-related deaths, one of the highest this year, according to Reuters.

NSW suffered its worst pandemic day, reporting 319 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases, with Sydney and neighbouring regional centres spanning 200km (120 miles) of coastline under a stay-at-home order for six weeks already.

With just over 36,000 Covid-19 cases and 937 deaths, Australia has avoided the high caseloads of other developed countries, but its vaccination figures are among the lowest, with only 20pc of people aged over 16 fully vaccinated.