SYDNEY: Australia’s coronavirus hotspot of Victoria on Tuesday reported a more than doubling in new infections likely as a result of increased testing, while other states said border restrictions would be relaxed as case numbers dwindled.
Officials said the northeastern state of Queensland would open its borders to parts of neighbouring New South Wales (NSW), the country’s most populous state, amid growing confidence that a second wave of infections in the country has been contained.
Australia reported 33 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, versus 16 a day earlier. Twenty-eight of those were reported in Victoria, up from 11 a day ago but significantly below peaks of about 700 seen last month.
The state, which introduced one of the world’s toughest measures to control the outbreak, including nightly curfews,…