Why the current Sydney outbreak is ‘quite different to what we’ve seen before’

The vice-president of the Australian Medical Association says the current COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney shows the Delta strain is “quite different to what we’ve seen before”.

NSW recorded 30 new local cases yesterday.

AMA vice-president Dr Chris Moy says two characteristics about the Delta strain have made it tricky to contact trace.

“Not only is it really infectious in terms of taking only 10 seconds to be transmitted, the other thing is its incubation period is really short, it’s maybe one to two days before people become infectious,” he told Tony Jones, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

“Previously is it has been five days before people become infectious and contact tracers had a bit of time to get on top of it. The problem with these ones is by the time contact tracers have got in front, caught the people, the next generation have already been out there infectious.

“This is why it has been outrunning the contact tracers in NSW.”

Press PLAY below to hear more about why the Delta strain poses unique challenges