patrol the Docklands area of Melbourne on August 2, 2020, after the
announcement of new restrictions to curb the spread of the COVID-19
coronavirus. AFP
Australia imposed an overnight curfew on its
second-biggest city Sunday and banned people from moving more than
five kilometres from home in a bid to control a growing coronavirus
outbreak that is infecting hundreds daily.
Declaring a “state of disaster”, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews
said Melbourne would move to Stage 4 restrictions until September
13 given “unacceptably high” levels of community transmission.
The harshest rules in Australia to date will see city residents
face a curfew from 8 pm to 5 am for the next six weeks. Only those
carrying out essential work, or seeking or providing care, will be
allowed out.
“The time for leniency, the time for warnings and
cautions is over,” Andrews said.
“If you are not at home and you should be, if you have
the virus and are just going about your business, you
will be dealt with harshly. Lives are at stake.”
Melbourne residents will be limited to an hour of exercise a
day, no further than five kilometres (about three miles) from home
starting Sunday night.
Only one person per household will be able to shop for essential
items each day, also within the same strict radius.
patrol the Docklands area of Melbourne on August 2, 2020, after the
announcement of new restrictions to curb the spread of the COVID-19
coronavirus. AFP
Most school and university students in Melbourne will go back to
online learning from midnight Wednesday, just weeks after returning
to their classrooms, while weddings will also be banned.
The sweeping new measures follow a city-wide lockdown that began
in early July but has failed to curb the spread of the virus, with
Andrews blaming the continuing rise in cases on people flouting
stay-at-home orders.
‘Months, and months and
months’
“These are the decisions made because anything short
of this will not keep us safe,” Andrews said, adding anything less
“will see it drag on for months and months and months”.
Additional restrictions affecting workplaces would be announced
Monday, Andrews added, suggesting that non-essential businesses
will face closures.
Victoria accounts for the vast majority of active coronavirus
cases in Australia, recording 671 new cases and seven deaths from
the virus Sunday.
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Health authorities have linked the resurgence to security
bungles at hotels used to quarantine international travellers that
allowed the virus to leak back into the community.
The state’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said an
estimated 20,000 cases were averted during Stage 3 restrictions,
but flattening the curve to hundreds of new cases a day was
“intolerable”.
“We need to see those numbers through the eyes of our healthcare
workers and the kind of awful fear that they have about what it
means for people presenting to hospital,” he said.
The virus has spread rapidly among vulnerable residents in
aged-care centres, where government disaster relief teams have been
deployed to replace infected staff.
Outside Melbourne, the rest of Victoria will move to a Stage 3
lockdown from midnight Wednesday with people allowed to leave home
only for essential work, study, care and needed supplies.
Elsewhere in Australia, other states and territories have for
weeks reported few or no new cases while relaxing restrictions.
They have, however, banned visitors from Victoria and Sydney —
another virus hotspot.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said people were now
being “strongly encouraged” to wear masks, particularly on public
transport, in shops and at places of worship as the state attempts
to avoid the fate of neighbouring Victoria.
“We are holding the line and doing OK but I cannot stress enough
that the next few weeks will make or break us, in terms of the way
we get through this pandemic,” she told reporters in Sydney.
Berejiklian added that unlike in Victoria, masks were not
compulsory but would instead act as a “fourth line of defence”
after testing, social distancing and hand-washing.
Australia’s total reported infections reached almost 18,000 on
Sunday, with 208 deaths in a population of 25 million.
AFP
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