Australian PM apologises for COVID-19 vaccine delays as cases spike

A pedestrian crosses an almost empty street in the City Centre during a lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Sydney, Australia, July 21, 2021. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's prime minister apologised for a sluggish COVID-19 vaccination programme on Thursday, while the country's most populous state reported its biggest one-day spike in infections in 16 months and warned cases would likely rise further.

Australia was widely lauded for containing the pandemic in 2020, but it has struggled this year to slow the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant even with more than half its 25 million population under a weeks-long lockdown.