Australia’s New South Wales reported one of the country’s youngest deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday, as daily infections lingered near a 16-month high despite the lockdown of 5 million people in state capital Sydney entering its sixth week.

The unnamed man in his 20s, who was unvaccinated, was 13 days into home isolation after testing positive when his health deteriorated rapidly, authorities said, adding that he lived with one person who had been hospitalized with the virus. The man's identity and how he caught the virus were not disclosed by the authorities. He lived in southwest Sydney, the epicenter of an outbreak related to the Delta virus strain that has ravaged the country's most populous city for weeks.

The young man was one of two COVID-19 deaths reported in New South Wales (NSW) in the past 24 hours. The death highlights the risk facing Australia’s largest city, which is struggling to contain an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant when fewer than 20 percent of Sydney’s residents are vaccinated.

Nationally, Australia has recorded 927 deaths since the pandemic’s start, with just over 35,000 cases out of 22 million people.