The cluster that triggered the renewed restrictions was housed in a quarantine hotel at Melbourne airport.
Victoria, Australia’s second most populous state, including the capital Melbourne, entered a five-day blockade on Saturday as authorities rushed to avert a third wave of COVID-19 cases triggered by the UK’s highly infectious variant.
A new case acquired locally has been confirmed in the past 24 hours, Victoria health officials said on Saturday, bringing the number of active cases in the state to 20.
“Many people will be suffering today. This is not the position the Victorians wanted, but I cannot have a situation where, in two weeks, we look back and wish we had made those decisions now, ”Premier Victoria Daniel Andrews told reporters on Saturday.
Andrews said Prime Minister Scott Morrison had agreed to stop all international flights to Melbourne by Wednesday after five en route planes, carrying about 100 passengers, landed on Saturday.
The cluster that triggered the renewed restrictions was housed in a quarantine hotel at Melbourne airport.
It is the third blockade imposed on Melbourne. The first two blocks were implemented when the infections spread in March 2020 and then in July, which lasted for about four months.
The streets of downtown Melbourne, the state capital, and its suburbs were almost empty on Saturday morning, with people being forced to stay at home, except for essential shopping, two hours of outdoor exercise, care or work that it cannot be done at home.
Among the “essential” jobs, playing at the Australian Open, the first tennis Grand Slam of the year, which runs until February 21, continued, but fans were banned until Wednesday. Thousands were forced to leave before midnight, sometimes in the middle of games, on Friday.
‘Soul destroying’
The blockade, which closed restaurants and cafes, except for take-out, happened just as Melbourne prepared for the biggest weekend in almost a year, with the celebrations of Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day and Australian Open crowds.
Melbourne suffered a 111-day block last year, one of the toughest and longest in the world at the time, to contain a coronavirus outbreak that caused more than 800 deaths.
“It is the busiest weekend of the year for us. I’m sitting here making 178 heartbreaking calls to see if I can make a new reservation, ”said Will Baa, owner of Lover, a restaurant in the trendy Windsor neighborhood.
“It is quite a destroyer of souls. But we are resilient. Just crossed fingers that only extend for a short period of five days, ”he said.
The Australian Open tournament continues on Saturday, without any audience, following the new blocking order [Loren Elliott/Reuters]
More broadly, Australia is considered to be one of the most successful countries in the world in combating the pandemic, largely because of decisive roadblocks and closed borders for almost all travelers. With a population of 25 million, there were approximately 22,200 cases in the community and 909 deaths.
New Zealand on Saturday also reported the death of a patient with COVID-19.
The person was taken to the quarantine hospital due to an unrelated condition, and later the test was positive. This case has not yet been included in the total of 25 deaths by COVID-19 in the country.