Sydney - Authorities on Tuesday ordered
the lockdown of 36 suburbs in Australia's second biggest city
Melbourne in an attempt to stop a spike in coronavius cases, a
dramatic departure from the relaxation of restrictions elsewhere
in the country.
From midnight on Wednesday the first suburb-specific
stay-home order will be imposed on some 320,000 people, the
Victorian state Premier Daniel Andrews told a news conference on
Tuesday.
Residents in the suburbs must stay home unless travelling
for work, school, healthcare, exercise or food for a period of
four weeks.
Cafes and restaurants would have to revert to takeaway only,
just weeks after they returned to seated diners amid a wider
reopening of the national economy.
The Victorian state government requested all flights be
diverted to other states to prevent the risk of imported cases.
"If we don't take these steps now we will finish up in a
situation (where rather) than locking down 10 postcodes, we will
be locking down every postcode," said Andrews, referring to
postal codes which cover the 36 suburbs.
"People are desperate for this to be over, no one more than
me, but it isn't and pretending won't get us to the other side."
The return to lockdown is a devastating setback for the home
state of nearly a quarter of Australia's 25 million people,
widely seen to have taken one of the toughest enforcement
approaches when the country first went into lockdown in March.
But while most other Australian states have reported zero or
low single-digit daily increases in Covid-19 infections for
weeks, Victoria has experienced double-digit increases for each
of the previous 14 days, taking the national total to its
highest number of new cases since April.
In the 24 hours to Tuesday, Victoria reported 64 new cases,
down from the previous day's 75 new cases. By comparison, the
most populous state, neighbouring New South Wales, and the
third-most populous, Queensland, both reported no new cases. The
country has had 104 deaths from about 7,800 infections.
The Victorian government is receiving help from defence
personnel and healthcare workers sent from interstate, with
teams door-knocking in affected neighborhoods to ask people to
undertake tests for the illness, Andrews said.
Police in the lockdown suburbs will fine people who broke
the rules, he said.
"We've been through this before and we now have to go
through it again," Lambros Tapinos, the mayor of several
affected postcodes told Reuters by telephone.
"It will be a devastating impact on people and particularly
local businesses, but we have to do it," he added.
The reversal is at odds with moves taken by neighbouring
South Australia and the northern state of Queensland which both
unveiled plans to reopen internal borders to the rest of the
country except Victoria, citing its infection numbers.
"We have worked so hard to get ourselves into a very
enviable position and we are not prepared to go backwards,"
South Australia state premier Steven Marshall told reporters.
Queensland said it would reopen its border to the rest of
the country from July 10 while keeping out arrivals from
Victoria.
Queensland does not share a border with Victoria but would
make people entering from other states sign a declaration that
they had not been to Victoria for 14 days with the threat of a
A$4,000 ($2,738) fine if they were caught lying.
NSW, which borders Victoria, said it would continue to keep
its border open as it focused on supporting its economy amid the
pandemic.