Australia's Victoria state extended its fifth lockdown since the pandemic began and tightened border restrictions with Sydney as authorities battle to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant.

Stay-at-home orders will remain in place for another seven days until midnight July 27 after Victoria recorded 13 new locally-acquired cases for a second straight day, state Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Tuesday. The state will effectively shut its border to people from Sydney, with exceptions for essential workers such as freight drivers and for compassionate reasons, he said.

Authorities hoped to re-open earlier, but there's a risk that unlinked cases could increase, as some cases detected overnight were infectious in the community, Andrews told reporters. "There are chains of transmission that are not yet contained," he said.

The state's shuttering for a second week comes as authorities in south-eastern Australia battle outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant that spread from an unvaccinated chauffeur who was infected while transporting airline crew last month. Authorities have issued stay-at-home orders for almost half of the nation's population, hampering the country's economic recovery after Australia slid into its first recession in about three decades last year.

New South Wales state recorded 78 new locally-transmitted coronavirus cases in the 24 hours through 8 p.m. Monday, as its capital city Sydney remains in lockdown for a fourth week to halt the Delta spread, state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Tuesday. While the majority of new cases are located in the city's southwest, about one third of new cases weren't isolated for a period before being detected despite being told to stay at home, she said.

Meantime, South Australia state will enter a weeklong statewide lockdown later Tuesday in a bid to halt an outbreak seeded from a returned traveler.

Australia's slow vaccine rollout—one of the slowest among the 38 OECD nations—has made the country particularly vulnerable to the Delta variant, which has increasingly leaked out of the quarantine system for overseas arrivals. While economies such as the UK and US are opening up, Australia's international borders remain largely closed, and fairly small clusters make even domestic travel difficult as states and territories pull up the drawbridge.

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