Australian state reports record 1,290 new COVID - 19 infections

CANBERRA, Aug 30 – Intensive care cases in Australia's New South Wales will hit a peak in October as COVID - 19 infections accumulate, said the premier of the country's most populous state, which reported daily record new infections on Monday.

Australia, the epicentre of the current outbreak, declared a record 1,290 new cases as the nation struggles to contain the highly contagious Delta variant.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state was prepared for additional hospitalizations as infections pile up, before an increased vaccination coverage starts to ease the pressure.

He anticipates that the worst month, the worst time for our intensive care unit will be in October, Berejiklian said in the state capital Sydney.

We will need to manage things differently because we are in the middle of a pandemic, but we will cope.

There are 840 people in hospital for COVID, 19 in New South Wales, with 137 in intensive care and 48 requiring ventilation.

The state reported four additional death on Monday, taking the COVID - 19 death toll to 1,003 in Australia, the final of the Group of 20 big economies to exceed that milestone. One of the four was the first known death of an Aboriginal person. The 50 year old man, who was not vaccinated, lived in western NSW where vaccine rates are particularly low raising fears there will be many more deaths there.

An estimated 460,000 people were identified as vulnerable communities, vulnerable groups in the vaccine rollout. And clearly that has failed, said Linda Burney, Labour shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, in an interview with reporters.

Australia has used a system of strict lockdowns and quarantine to keep coronavirus infections and death rates lower than those in most comparable nations, however the Delta variant is now pressuring health services.

Just over 33% of those aged 16 and older have had two vaccine doses, which is well below most comparable nations, according to government data.

The delays were partly because of the change in health advice over use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which had to be the backbone of the country's immunisation programme, after rare cases of blood clots among some recipients.

The pace of vaccination in Australia has since risen to a seven-day average of more than 250,000 doses a day, the fastest rate ever, according to a Reuters analysis.

Australia's second most populous state, Victoria, reported 73 new COVID - 19 cases on Monday, a day after Premier Dan Andrews said he would extend lockdown measures as daily infections reached the highest in a year.

Reporting by Colin Packham in Canberra, additonal reporting by Wayne Cole and Sonali Paul; Editing by Jane Wardell, Christian Schmollinger and Himani Sarkar.