Sydney residents face first day of coronavirus lockdown

"To be honest it doesn't really feel like a lockdown, we just walked around the Pirrama Park and there's heaps of people out," local resident Preet Singh told Reuters. "I think because we have been through a lockdown before so I guess we are mentally a bit more prepared this time."

Australia has been more successful in managing the pandemic than many other advanced economies through swift border closures, social distancing rules and high compliance, reporting just over 30,450 cases and 910 COVID-19 deaths.

But the country has confronted an increasing number of small outbreaks in recent months. These have been contained so far through speedy contact tracing, isolation of thousands of people at a time or snap hard lockdowns.

Thirty new infections reported by Sydney on Sunday took the number of Delta variant cases linked to a cluster in the Bondi neighbourhood to 110. Two other cases were under investigation.