Victoria sees vaccine boom after lockdown

MELBOURNE: Australia’s Victoria state reported five new local cases of Covid-19, amid a strict lockdown, as people rushed to vaccination centres, causing long lines and technical glitches.

The cases yesterday bring the latest cluster to 35, but the number of exposure sites visited by the infected people has expanded to more than 150, putting thousands at risk.

Victoria went into the week-long lockdown on Thursday night, the state’s fourth in the pandemic, forcing residents to remain at home.

Melbournians have been ordered to stay at home for seven days to stall transmission and buy the authorities time to investigate how the virus again jumped from hotel quarantine into the community.

“We are taking this outbreak day by day,” Victoria’s commander of its Covid-19 response, Jeroen Weimar, told a news briefing.

The outbreak was caused by a traveller who left hotel quarantine in South Australia state after testing negative but later tested positive in Melbourne.

People lined up for several hours at vaccination centres yesterday, trying to book a shot or get one on a walk-in basis.

A designated state hotline for booking has crashed continually since Thursday.

This week, Victoria became the first state or territory in Australia to administer more than 40,000 vaccine doses in a day. On Friday, nearly 43,500 doses were administered.

Meanwhile, police said they had arrested 14 people yesterday at various anti-lockdown and vaccination protests across Melbourne. About 150 people protested in the city’s centre and 55 fines were issued.