Australia's New South Wales logged its second-highest daily increase of the year in locally acquired Covid-19 cases amid fears of a wave of new infections after thousands of people joined an anti-lockdown protest. "In relation to yesterday's protests, can I say how absolutely disgusted I was.
It broke my heart," Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of the country's most populous state, told the media. "I hope it won't be a setback, but it could be," she said.
There were 141 Covid-19 cases reported, down from 163 a day earlier. The outbreak, which began in June, is being driven by the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus, and has now infected 2,081 people in New South Wales.