Covid-19 coronavirus: Australia passes milestone with clutch of new cases

The total number of people infected with coronavirus in Australia has passed 6000, and the death toll has reached 50.

A 62-year-old woman died at Royal Adelaide Hospital and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also announced another person had died.

That comes after seven coronavirus victims were announced on Tuesday in the deadliest day of the outbreak so far, capping a horror four days that added 20 people to Australia's death toll.

Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan announced two more deaths in his state, bringing its tally to six. Two people aged in their 70s died, with quarantine preventing one victim's infected partner from saying goodbye.

A look at New York City at night during the coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/xZ5MJLsQ2J pic.twitter.com/rJOouKChQx

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) April 8, 2020

A man who had been on board the Artania cruise ship died at Joondalup Health Campus while a woman who had travelled overseas died at Royal Perth Hospital. The woman's husband, who also has Covid-19, was reportedly denied permission to see her in hospital and remains at a Perth hotel.

WA Health Minister Roger Cook said such difficult decisions are made by medical staff and he would not second guess them, but would make inquiries. He said welfare checks were conducted on people quarantining in hotels and extra efforts were being made for the grieving man.

NSW earlier this week reported two more deaths, Victoria its eleventh, South Australia its first and Tasmania its third.

The Cook County jail in Chicago, a sprawling facility that is among the largest jails in the nation, has emerged as the largest-known source of U.S. coronavirus infections, according to data compiled by The New York Times https://t.co/lYcEiRP6oL pic.twitter.com/6ZzDwuzVWn

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 8, 2020

That came after 11 victims were announced in a wave of deaths over Sunday and Monday, including the youngest so far – a man in his 50s who died in a Victorian hospital and a 61-year-old man who died at Hornsby Hospital in Sydney.

Federal and state health officials are cautiously optimistic after several days of declining rates of new infections.

There are now 6015 total cases, with 2734 in NSW, 1212 in Victoria, 943 in Queensland, 420 in South Australia, 480 in Western Australia, 107 in Tasmania, 99 in the Australian Capital Territory and 28 in the Northern Territory .