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Australia recorded zero new locally acquired cases of coronavirus yesterday, the first time the country's daily total hasn't moved since the peak of the pandemic.
Australia recorded just two new cases in NSW, both of which were acquired overseas.
The ABC reports more than 80 per cent of new cases in Australia this week were acquired overseas. This week has seen only seven cases of local transmission in the country: six in Victoria and one in Queensland.
The high proportion of overseas-acquired cases is likely to deter the Federal Government from reopening the nation's borders anytime soon.
Travellers returning to Australia are still required to self-isolate for two weeks on arrival.
NSW, which has been the country's worst-affected state, is looking to further ease restrictions after having recorded only 62 new cases in the past week.
"Given New South Wales is doing better than we'd expected at this stage, that we are looking to further ease restrictions," NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said yesterday.
"And there will be announcements about that in the next little while."
Berejiklian has put pressure other states and territories to ease border lockdowns so interstate travel and business can resume.
However, health authorities have warned they will be on extra alert for a spike in infections after tens of thousands of Australians gathered at Black Lives Matter rallies across the country last weekend.
"We don't know if anyone in those mass gatherings were infected or infectious, and so it is a wait-and-see approach," Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said on Sunday.
Australia's milestone comes as New Zealand declares itself virus-free, having gone 17 days without a single new case.
"We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand," the country's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced yesterday.
New Zealand introduced some of the world's most strict lockdown rules, aiming for total elimination of the virus.
All restrictions were lifted in the country overnight but its international borders will remain closed.
However, Australia's increasingly pleasing results may give rise to more talk of a transtasman bubble between the two nations.
But it comes as the number of new daily cases of Covid-19 globally hit a record high.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said overnight the pandemic appeared to be worsening, with South America emerging as the new global epicentre.
"More than 100,000 cases have been reported on nine of the past 10 days," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing overnight.
"Yesterday, more than 136,000 cases were reported – the most in a single day so far."
Brazil currently has the world's second-highest number of cases after the United States, with over 670,000 people infected since the pandemic began.
