Australian authorities have urged a “move away from fear” of the coronavirus, resisting calls to make masks mandatory indoors and limit the numbers of patrons at Sydney venues, even as new Covid-19 infections lingered near records.

“There will always be new variants of this virus,” said Dominic Perrottet, premier of the most populous state of New South Wales.

“The pandemic is not going away and we need to learn to live alongside it,” he told reporters in Sydney, the state's capital.