Five million begin lockdown in Australian city
MELBOURNE - Five million people in Australia’s secondbiggest city began a new lockdown yesterday, returning to tough restrictions just weeks after they ended as Melbourne grapples with a resurgence of coronavirus cases.
Residents have been told to stay at home for six weeks after other measures to contain a spike in Covid-19 failed to prevent the virus spreading.
The state of Victoria, which announced a further 165 new cases yesterday, has been effectively sealed off in an effort to preserve the rest of Australia’s success in curbing the virus.
However, a rush of travellers across the border into neighbouring New South Wales on Wednesday has raised concerns those efforts could be torpedoed. Police said about 30 000 cars made the crossing in less than 36 hours.
“A few cases coming over the border from Victoria (can) tip that magic number into outbreaks that are going to be very hard to control,” epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws told public broadcaster ABC.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said two cases of Covid-19 had been identified in the border town of Albury and she warned against travel to or from communities on the state frontier.
“We want to make sure we’re flushing out any potential seeding that occurred prior to that spike in cases becoming evident,” she told reporters in Sydney.
Queensland state announced yesterday it would turn away all travellers from Victoria - removing an option that had allowed them to spend 14 days in quarantine on arrival. In Melbourne, there are concerns over the economic and mental health impacts of the second lockdown, which officials estimate will cost the economy Aus$6 billion (US$4.2 billion).
Restaurants and cafes are limited to serving takeaway food, while gyms, beauty salons and cinemas have been forced to close again.
Residents are restricted to their homes except for work, exercise, medical care or to buy essentials.
Despite the harsh measures, many said they support the restrictions.
“I think it is a very good thing,” resident Don Sherman told AFP.
“Everybody has to be aware of their rights and what they have to be (doing) in this critical situation.”
Authorities yesterday eased a controversial “hard lockdown” of a high-rise public housing estate, where roughly 3 000 people spent five days confined to their apartments amid fears the virus had spread across the towers.
Health officials said just one of the nine towers would remain subject to Australia’s harshest isolation after it was found that most of the 111 residents who tested positive lived in a single building.
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said it was a “difficult” decision to keep the one tower’s residents in lockdown but was part of a strategy to “try and drive down numbers”.
“That is an abundance-of-caution approach that not only protects the welfare and the wellbeing, the health of all of those residents, but also protects public health as well,” he told a press conference.