Sharjah24 – Reuters: Australia's most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), on Tuesday reported its biggest rise in new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in nearly a week, prompting authorities to extend a mask mandate in Sydney for a week.

Ten new locally acquired cases were reported in NSW on Tuesday, as officials fight to contain a latest cluster of the highly infectious Delta virus variant. Eight of the 10 are household contacts of previous cases in isolation.

Masks will be mandatory indoors in Sydney, Australia's largest city, for another week from Thursday morning although officials stopped short of announcing further curbs as the cluster increased to 21 infections in six days.

The Delta variant, which has been classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as among the four COVID-19 variants of concern, most likely caused the latest devastating outbreak in India.

Tuesday's data includes seven cases recorded after the 8 p.m. cut-off deadline, which will be included in Wednesday's numbers.

Authorities say the latest outbreak, the first in the state in more than a month, is linked to a driver who transports overseas airline crew members and then later visited several venues, including a shopping centre in Bondi, a popular tourist hotspot.

Swift tracing systems, tough social distancing rules and a high community compliance have kept Australia's COVID-19 numbers relatively low, with just over 30,350 cases and 910 deaths.