Australian authorities abruptly closed the city of Perth, in western Australia, for five days after a person tested positive for the coronavirus there – a security guard in a quarantined hotel. The state of Western Australia has spent almost ten months without any sign of community transmission.
Under the new restrictions, about two million people in and around the city can leave the house for essential reasons only, such as exercise, medical needs and grocery shopping until Friday night. Restaurants, bars and gyms will be closed and the use of masks will be mandatory in public. Schools, which were due to reopen this week, will remain closed.
“I know that for many Western Australians, this will come as a shock,” Mark McGowan, the state’s premier, said at a news conference announcing the measures on Sunday. The state had “crushed” the outbreak before, he said, but “we cannot forget the speed with which this virus can spread, nor the devastation it can cause”.
The security guard developed symptoms on Thursday after working that week at a hotel where travelers are quarantined, McGowan said. A traveler there had tested positive for the most contagious virus variant that was first detected in Britain.
Australia was praised for its comparative success in treating the pandemic, reporting a total of 28,810 cases and 909 deaths, much less in relation to its size than most other developed countries. It acted aggressively to suppress new outbreaks and largely banned its citizens from leaving the country. New cases have been discovered mainly in returning travelers, who are strictly quarantined in hotels.
The city of Brisbane quickly imposed a three-day block earlier this month, after a janitor who worked at a quarantine hotel there was positive.
The country reopened a travel bubble with neighboring New Zealand and began allowing domestic travel from state to state, although officials have not hesitated to close state borders against emerging outbreaks.