Australia's Covid-19 daily cases have topped 1,900 for the first time in the pandemic as an outbreak fuelled by the highly infectious Delta variant continues to gain ground in locked-down Sydney and Melbourne, its largest cities, reports Reuters.

New South Wales (NSW), the epicentre of the country's worst outbreak, has reported 1,542 new daily local cases, topping the previous high of 1,533 hit last week. Nine new deaths have also been registered.

“So far this trajectory is what has been predicted,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told a media briefing in Sydney, the state capital, where cases are expected to hit a peak in the next week.