Australia’s second-biggest city eases lockdown as virus cases plummet
MELBOURNE: Officials announced a slight easing of lockdown restrictions in Australia’s second-biggest city Sunday following a steady decline in new coronavirus cases, but they stopped short of ending a controversial “stay-at-home” rule.
More than 100 days after the lockdown was imposed on Melbourne’s five million residents to fight an out-ofcontrol surge of Covid-19 cases, authorities lifted a two-hour limit on the time people could spend outside their homes for permitted activities.
They also extended to 25 kilometres the distance people could travel from their homes for those activities, which include exercise, shopping for essentials, socialising and work in essential professions.
But Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria state which encompasses Melbourne, rejected growing calls for an end to all limits on people being able to leave their homes and for a broader reopening of restaurants and other retail businesses.
He said the stay-at-home rule could be lifted and other business restrictions eased on November 1 if community transmission of the virus remains under control.
“I’m not doing what is popular, I am doing what is safe, because we don’t want to be back here again” if there is a new wave of infections, Andrews said.
The number of new daily coronavirus cases in Victoria has fallen to low single digits for the past several days, after running at up to several hundred in August.
The outbreak in Victoria came after other parts of Australia had successfully contained the epidemic and begun to reopen their economies, notably in neighbouring New South Wales, which includes Sydney.