Australia’s coronavirus outbreak may take weeks to subside – official

A surge in Covid-19 cases in Australia’s second-biggest city could take weeks to tame, despite a lockdown and orders to wear masks, the country’s Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said on Monday.

Authorities in the state of Victoria, whose capital, Melbourne, is in partial lockdown amid a new outbreak, reported 275 new coronavirus cases on Monday, down from a daily record of 438 three days earlier, Reuters reports.

Kelly said it would take “weeks” to slow the outbreak to levels seen as recently as June, when Victoria and the rest of Australia reported single- or double-digit daily infections.