MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, will relax its third block on Wednesday and allow spectators to return to the Australian Open tennis tournament after a five-day absence.
The Rod Laver Arena will have 7,477 spectators – about 50% of its capacity – for the final four days of the first Grand Slam for 2021, tournament organizers said.
Up to 30,000 tennis fans a day were allowed to enter three zones at the tournament site, Melbourne Park, before the state blockade in Victoria.
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said earlier that health officials would decide the number of tennis players.
“We will end with crowds in many different places,” said Andrews. “We are going to end with people being able to move freely because this short, sharp breaker worked.”
The blockade was applied in Victoria, with a population of 6.5 million people, to prevent the virus from spreading from the state capital.
Most restrictions will be lifted after 11:59 pm, after no new infections have been detected in the past 24 hours, Andrews said.
Schools and businesses will reopen.
But people will still be forced to wear masks and home visits will be limited to five people until February 26, when the last of the 25 cases of COVID-19 active in the state will no longer be infectious.
All cases were traced to a Melbourne airport hotel, where travelers are quarantined for 14 days on arrival from abroad.
The companies complained that the blockade, announced just hours before it went into effect last Friday, interrupted the Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day festivities.
All tennis spectators were expelled from Melbourne Park at 11:30 pm so that they had time to get home before the stay order took effect. Many booed as they left. The Australian Open has continued without spectators ever since.
Some business leaders described the last block as an overreaction.
“It is clear that testing and screening were the keys to resolving this potential outbreak, not the blockade that was disproportionate to the risk,” said Australian Industry Group state head Tim Piper.
“We need to learn from this block and adjust the responses accordingly,” added Piper.
Andrews does not guarantee that there will be no more blocks announced in the short term.
“I’m not prepared to pretend to the Victorian community that it’s all over,” said Andrews.
Melbourne emerged from a 111-day block in October, after a new wave of infections that peaked at 725 cases a day. The blame was largely attributed to lax infection control procedures at two quarantine hotels in Melbourne.
At the time, the rest of Australia was easing restrictions due to the low number of cases following an initial blockade across the country.
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McGuirk contributed from Canberra, Australia.