Australia has marked a record daily number of new coronavirus cases this year, 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% of Australia's population, under a strict lockdown, the country also reported five coronavirus-related deaths, one of the highest this year.
NSW suffered its worst pandemic day, reporting 319 new locally acquired Covid cases, with Sydney and neighbouring regional centres spanning 200km of coastline under a stay-at-home order for six weeks already.