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Once Australia's Covid-19 hotspot, Victoria state records 28 days without an infection
A customer shops inside a Christmas store as Covid-19 regulations are further eased for the state of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia November 26, 2020. u00e2u20acu201d Reuters pic

SYDNEY, Nov 27 — Australia's second-largest state, once the country's Covid-19 hotspot, said today it has gone 28 days without detecting any new infections, a benchmark widely cited as eliminating the virus from the community.

The state also has zero active cases after the last Covid-19 patient was discharged from hospital this week, a far cry from August when Victoria recorded more than 700 cases in one day and active infections totalled nearly 8,000.

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The spread of the virus was only contained after a lockdown lasting more than 100 days, leaving some five million people in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, largely confined to their homes.

While the lockdown has seen infections wane, it slowed Australia's economic recovery from its first recession in three decades after large swathes of the country's economy was shut down in March.

Australia's economy shrank 7 per cent in the three months to the end of June, the biggest quarterly decline since records began in 1959. The unemployment rate hit a 22-year high of 7.5 per cent in July as businesses and borders closed to deal with the coronavirus.

Still, Australia's nearly 28,000 Covid-19 infections recorded to date, according to health ministry data, are far fewer than many other developed countries. Victoria accounts for more than 90 per cent of the country's 905 deaths. — Reuters

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