Announcement came today Victoria will go into lockdown again for five days, from midnight tonight, in a designated “short, sharp circuit-breaker” to stem the spread of the highly infectious UK strain of coronavirus.
Striving to prevent spread into the community and a third wave, Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed the snap lockdown, due to end at 11:59pm on Wednesday, but gave hope that it could end sooner if case numbers dropped off rapidly.
The State of Victoria returns to stage 4 lockdown restrictions, dictating:
- People are only to leave home for: essential work, care and caregiving, or shopping for essential supplies, or exercise – both of which are limited to within five kilometres of the home
- People must work from home if possible
- Face masks need to be worn indoors and outdoors, and no visitors allowed
- Schools and education will be closed, no public gatherings, no weddings (except on compassionate grounds), no gatherings or ceremonies at places of worship, funerals capped at ten people
- Venues return to offering takeaway only
There will again be fines for people found breaching the rules.
The outbreak triggering the response is linked to the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel at Melbourne Airport, which has quickly grown to 13 cases after five new cases were confirmed yesterday. All community-acquired cases have come from this outbreak, seeing hotel workers returning positive tests.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said 75 per cent of cases being diagnosed in the hotel quarantine system are found to have the B117 UK strain, and the reaction is based on the assumption that all people in the growing cluster have it. International arrivals have again been paused as part of the response.
The outbreak at the Holiday Inn is believed to have begun due to an infected returned traveller using a nebuliser, facilitating viral spread on one floor of the hotel. (A nebuliser is a medical device – actually banned in hotel quarantine – that produces an aerosol of medication that the user breathes in and out.)
The sudden outbreak has again tested the state’s contact tracing systems, but the increased rate of infection of the so-called UK strain is finding infected hotel workers have already passed it on to family and close contacts.
Sutton believes authorities must assume that there are further as-yet undetected cases, given the frightening velocity of spread being seen in recent days, and says while no-one wants the circuit-breaker, they “need to do it now” as the alternative is “potentially devastating”.
Premier Andrews defended the efforts of the contact tracing, saying the problem was not what have been shown to be effective methods, it is the sheer veracity of the UK variant.
“This is not the 2020 virus; this is different, this is something very, very different.”
National operator Australian Venue Co finds dozens of its pubs forced shut again at short notice. CEO Paul Waterson laments that along with most Victorian publicans they will lose thousands of bookings and scheduled functions, but says they are “100 per cent behind it” if the quick response leads to a quicker return to normality.
“Rolling lockdowns are unsettling for the community and our team,” says Waterson.
“We really hope the Federal and State Governments can find a more robust solution for these all too regular quarantine issues.”