MELBOURNE UNDER LOCKDOWN

City shuts for fifth time, bringing number of Aussies under stay-at-home orders to 12 million

AUSTRALIA’S bid to quash a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak saw its second largest city locked down yesterday, bringing the number of Australians under stay-at-home orders to around 12 million.

Melbourne and the rest of Victoria joined Sydney in a “hard and fast” lockdown, state premier Dan Andrews said, as Australia battles an outbreak of the Delta variant.

The largely Covid-19-free country has recorded nearly 1,000 cases of the strain nationwide in the last month.

Andrews said he took the decision to return the city to its fifth lockdown “with a heavy heart” but it was an “absolute necessity”.

“Nothing about this virus is fair,” he said, describing how just 18 cases in Victoria had mixed with thousands of contacts who must now be traced and tested.

“You only get one chance to go hard and go fast,” he said.

“If you wait, if you hesitate, if you doubt, then you will always be looking back wishing you had done more earlier.”

The lockdown began shortly before midnight local time yesterday and will last five days.

Australia’s largest city, Sydney, is already in its fourth week

of lockdown, after the virus spread from overseas aircraft workers to their local driver last month.

Sydney authorities said yesterday that the situation had “stabilised” — with 65 new cases reported in the last 24 hours.

But the lockdown is set to continue for two more weeks to try and eliminate any community transmission.

Australia had been widely lauded for its early handling of the pandemic and successful “Covid19 zero” strategy.

But a painfully slow vaccine rollout has left just 10 per cent of the population protected as many other developed nations are starting to reopen.

The lockdown rules are less stringent than some other countries have seen.

Sydney residents are allowed to leave home for exercise, essential shopping, work or health reasons, but schools are closed and people are encouraged to remain at home.

In China, millions of Chinese face bans from public spaces, including schools, hospitals and shopping malls, unless they get a Covid-19 vaccine, under new edicts covering nearly two dozen cities and counties.

The coronavirus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, but since then, the country has largely brought it under control — and Beijing is determined to keep it that way.

The tough new rules, which follow the emergence of the Delta variant across Asia, will be imposed on numerous second-tier cities in a possible marker of what is to come for the whole country.

China has a national target of inoculating 64 per cent of its 1.4 billion population by end of the year, and new measures suggest high levels of coercion.

In Chuxiong city in the southern province of Yunnan — home to about 510,000 people — all residents above the age of 18 need to get at least one dose of the vaccine by July 23, according to a government notice posted on Wednesday.