The nation’s two biggest cities are now living under strict lockdown rules after Victoria joined Sydney on Thursday night due to rising case numbers.Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews plunged his state into a fifth lockdown in response to rising infections linked to Sydney’s deadly Delta outbreak.The new cases prompted a string of border closures from other states and territories as governments try to stop the virus spreading across the country.Australia now has about 979 active cases with 132 Covid-19 patients in hospital.An update from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and chief health officer Kerry Chant is expected at 11am.VICTORIAVictoria recorded six new locally acquired Covid-19 cases on Friday as the state commenced the first day of a snap five-day lockdown.Victoria now has 24 cases linked to the two incursions that jumped the border from Sydney’s deadly Delta outbreak.The health department said all of the new cases on Friday were also linked to known outbreaks, which have spawned from a team of Sydney removalists that transited through the state and a family that returned to Melbourne’s north from a NSW red zone.The health department also confirmed one new case in hotel quarantine, with the number of active cases in Victoria at 36, up from 26 on Thursday.QUEENSLANDQueensland has recorded one new locally acquired case of Covid-19, who is the mother of the 12-year-old boy identified on Thursday.The boy, from Newport, travelled with his mum to the United States where they stayed in Los Angeles for three months before returning to Sydney on June 21.He then returned to Queensland on July 9. Chief health officer Jeannette Young said she was certain the boy acquired the virus in Sydney.The boy and his father were announced as positive on Thursday by Queensland health officials.The new cases ignited a list of exposure sites across Brisbane and led to Annastacia Palaszczuk extending the mandatory mask-wearing policy in the state’s southeast by another week from Friday.
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