MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Victoria’s second most populous state of Victoria entered a five-day lockout on Saturday when authorities rushed to prevent a third wave of COVID-19 cases caused by the British infection with many infections.
One new case obtained locally has been confirmed in the past 24 hours, health authorities said on Saturday. The number of cases related to a quarantine hotel at Melbourne airport is down to 14 and the total number of active cases in the state to 20.
‘A lot of people will get hurt today. “This is not the position Victorians wanted to be in, but I can not stand a situation that we look back on in two weeks’ time and wish we had made these decisions now,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Saturday. .
International flights to Melbourne will be suspended until Wednesday, after five en route, with about 100 passengers, land on Saturday.
All 14 cases in the airport cluster are the result of the highly contagious British variant of the new coronavirus. So far, only direct contacts of workers at the hotel have tested positive.
‘It’s contained in that sentence. “There are concerns in Victoria about distribution in the community,” Australia’s chief medical officer Paul Kelly told reporters.
Streets in Melbourne’s city center, the state capital, and its suburbs were almost empty on Saturday, and people were ordered to stay home for anything but essential shopping, two hours of outdoor exercise, grooming or work that could not be done at home. .
Under the ‘essential’ work, play continued at the Australian Open, this year’s first Grand Slam tennis event, which runs until 21 February, but fans were banned until Wednesday. Thousands had to leave midnight on Friday to leave midfielders.
Players miss the crowd.
‘It was a little disturbing – in some ways sad. “I was just trying to concentrate on my game,” said Elina Svitolina after winning her third round match.
The exclusion, which takes away restaurants and cafes for all, closes just as Melbourne has been preparing for the biggest weekend in almost a year, with the celebration of the new lunar year, Valentine’s Day and the crowd of the Australian Open.
Melbourne experienced a 111-day exclusion last year, one of the strictest and longest in the world at the time, to prevent an outbreak of the coronavirus that led to more than 800 deaths.
“It’s the busiest weekend of the year for us. I’m sitting here making 178 heartbreaking calls to see if I can get it booked, ”said Will Baa, owner of Lover, a restaurant in the hip district of Windsor.
“Just thumbs up that it only lasts for a short period of five days,” he said.
More generally, Australia is considered the world’s most successful country in tackling the pandemic, mainly due to decisive closures and borders sealed to all but a drop of travelers. With a population of 25 million, there were approximately 22,200 community cases and 909 deaths.
New Zealand reported on Saturday the death of a patient with COVID-19. The case is yet to be included in the country’s total of 25 COVID-19 deaths.
Reporting by Sonali Paul; Edited by Michael Perry / Peter Rutherford