New South Wales , Victoria, and South Australia - all in lockdown

New South Wales , Victoria, and South Australia - all in lockdown

Millions of Australians will now only be able to leave their home for essential reasons as New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are now all in lockdown after outbreaks of the Covid-19 Delta variant.

NSW has seen a drop in its daily covid cases, with 78 new infections recorded in the past 24 hours. However Premier Gladys Berejiklian said about 27 of those cases were infectious while in the community.

"It's always pleasing when we see a drop in these numbers," Gladys Berejiklian said, but added: "The main place where people are getting the virus or giving the virus is workplaces."

She also said: "What we're also seeing is younger people getting it because of that… all of us have to be on our guard."

The Greater Sydney lockdown will continue for at least until Friday, July 30.

Victoria's lockdown extended by seven days as the state records 13 new COVID cases

Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed the state's lockdown will finish on Tuesday July 27 at midnight.

"We wish we could bring this in earlier, but we can't run the risk that there are cases out there that we don't know about," he said.

"There are changes of transmission that are not yet contained that we don't no about and if we would open up we would see how quickly this runs, we see how challenging this can become in a very short space of time."

He added, it was a difficult decision to extend the lockdown.

South Australia will head into lockdown for seven days from 6pm on Tuesday after it recorded a fifth case of Covid-19.

Premier Steven Marshall announced at an 11am press conference health authorities had confirmed the highly-contagious Delta variant had infiltrated the state.

Mr Marshall said the bad news had left the government with no other alternative but to impose a hard lockdown.

“We hate to put these restrictions in place but we have just one chance, one chance to get this right,” he said.