Australia's daily COVID-19 cases near 2,000 as Delta gains ground

FILE PHOTO: A lone man wearing a protective face mask sits at an unusually quiet State Library on the first day of a lockdown as the state of Victoria looks to curb the spread of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, July 16, 2021. REUTERS/Sandra Sanders

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's COVID-19 daily cases topped 1,900 for the first time in the pandemic on Friday as an outbreak fuelled by the highly infectious Delta variant continued to gain ground in locked-down Sydney and Melbourne, its largest cities.

Australia is in the grip of a third wave of infections with the Delta outbreak forcing officials to ditch their COVID-zero strategy in favour of suppressing the virus.