Australia reports more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases for 1st time

Despite the record number of infections, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in Canberra on Thursday that it was another day of hope with the vaccine rollout continuing to accelerate. There were more than 300,000 doses of vaccines administered across Australia on Wednesday, and so far about 32 percent of Australians aged 16 years old and over have been fully vaccinated.

Morrison said that the country would finish this week with more than one-third of Australians having had both doses. Of the 1,123 news cases recorded on Thursday, 1,029 were from New South Wales (NSW), Australia's most populous state with Sydney as the capital city.

Victoria, the second-most populous state with Melbourne as the capital city, reported a further 80 new cases, and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) recorded another 14. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said a meeting of the health authorities on Thursday night would decide whether to ease Canberra's strict lockdown restrictions but warned it would be a slow pathway out.

"There will not be a significant easing of restrictions -- it will be a gentle step forward and this will remain the case through spring," he said. So far, about half the Australian population in NSW, Victoria, and ACT is still in lockdown.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there had been 46,728 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and the number of cases reported in the previous 24 hours was 995, most of which were locally acquired, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health.