Six new locally acquired cases were reported on Wednesday, versus nine a day earlier, taking to 60 the tally of infections in the latest outbreak. Though Victoria's daily cases have been in the single digits since the lockdown was imposed, officials fear even minimal contact could help spread the variant involved in the latest outbreak. Snap lockdowns, regional border curbs and tough social distancing rules have largely helped Australia suppress prior outbreaks and keep its COVID-19 figures relatively low, at just over 30,100 cases and 910 deaths. More than 800 people died in that outbreak, accounting for about 90% of Australia's total deaths since the pandemic began. 'No one.wants to repeat last winter,' he added, referring to one of the world's strictest and longest lockdowns that the southeastern state imposed in 2020 to leash a second wave of infections. 'This variant of concern will become uncontrollable and people will die.' 'If we let this thing run its course, it will explode,' the state's acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne. Last Thursday's lockdown in Australia's second most populous state was to have run until Thursday, following the detection of the first locally acquired cases in three months, but infections rose and the number of close contacts reached several thousand. SYDNEY, June 2 (Reuters) - The Australian state of Victoria extended on Wednesday a snap coronavirus lockdown in its capital of Melbourne for a second week, as it scrambles to rein in a highly contagious variant first detected in India, but will ease some curbs elsewhere.

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