The death came as New South Wales recorded a record number of new infections, and the authorities warned that there would be more cases.

Australia announced its first coronavirus-related deaths this year as the authorities in New South Wales are working to control the outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant.

Officials said on Sunday that the woman in her 90s died a few hours after testing positive for COVID-19.

This is the first time she died of a local infection in Australia this year, when New South Wales recorded a record 77 new cases of the virus.

State Governor Gladys Berejiklian told reporters that the number of people in the country’s largest city, Sydney and its surrounding areas, is already under strict lockdown and is expected to rise.

“If there are fewer than 100 new cases this time tomorrow, I would be shocked,” she said.

There were 50 cases on Saturday, a record high in 2021. The number of recent outbreaks is 566.

Of the Sunday’s cases, 33 people spent the time in the community during the infection, which increases the possibility of an extension of the three-week lockdown period for more than 5 million people in Sydney and surrounding areas.

Berejiklian said: “Considering where we are and the situation where the lockdown should be lifted on Friday, everyone can see that the emergence stage is unlikely to happen.”

There are 52 cases in the hospital, and about one in ten people have been infected in the current epidemic. 15 people are in the intensive care unit and 5 people need ventilation.

Australia’s performance in keeping the number of COVID-19 relatively low is much better than many other developed countries, with only more than 31,000 cases and 911 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

However, due to supply constraints and changing medical recommendations for its main AstraZeneca injections, the introduction of vaccination has been slow.

Vaccination is currently only available to people over 40 years old and groups at risk due to health or exposure to the virus at work.

Health authorities said 11 of the patients hospitalized in Sydney were under the age of 35, and more than three-quarters of the patients had not received any vaccines.