Anonymous ID: 03a327 Feb. 11, 2021, 8:09 p.m. No.12897879   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>7922 >>7936 >>8042 >>8135 >>8230 >>8301

Chairman Dan locks down Victoria again

 

Victoria plunged into five-day lockdown as Holiday Inn cases grow

 

Victoria has been plunged into lockdown for the third time over worsening UK mutant strain outbreak in Melbourne.

 

Victoria has been plunged into a third lockdown after a cluster of cases linked to the state’s hotel quarantine system grew to 13 overnight.

 

Premier Daniel Andrews said the lockdown would last five days from 11.59pm tonight until the same time on Wednesday.

 

Victorians will only be allowed to leave their homes for the following reasons: essential supplies, care and caregiving and exercise and essential work.

 

Exercise and shopping will be limited to 5km from Victorians’ homes.

 

Exercise is allowed for two hours a day with household members, your partner, or one other person who is not from your household.

 

Masks will need to be worn everywhere except in your own homes and no visitors are allowed in homes.

 

Public gatherings are not permitted.

 

Mr Andrews said that if you can work from home, then you must work from home.

 

Schools will close but will remain available over three days — Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday — for vulnerable children.

 

Child care and early childhood centres will remain open.

 

Places of worship are closed. Religious gatherings and ceremonies are not permitted. Funerals can involve no more than 10 people for both indoor or outdoor settings. Weddings are not permitted unless on compassionate grounds.

 

There will be no crowds at the Australian Open.

 

WHAT’S GOING TO CLOSE?

 

All non-essential retail must close, but supermarkets, bottle shops and pharmacies can stay open. One person in each household can go shopping per day.

 

Cafes and restaurants will be restricted to takeaway only, dine-in is not allowed. Pubs will have to close.

 

The following venues will also forced to shut: Gyms, pools, community centres, entertainment venues, play centres and libraries.

 

‘SHORT, SHARP CIRCUIT BREAKER’

 

Mr Andrews said he was left with no option because of the speed with which cases were spreading.

 

“I know it’s not the place that we wanted to be in,” he said. “However, we’ve all given so much, we’ve all done so much. We’ve built something precious, and we have to make difficult decisions, and do difficult things, in order to defend what we’ve built.

 

“I am confident that this short, sharp circuit breaker will be effective.

 

“We will be able to smother this. We will be able to prevent it getting away from us.

 

“I want to be here on Wednesday next week announcing that these restrictions are coming off, but I can’t do it on my own. I need every single Victorian to work with me, and with our team, so that we can run this to ground and we can see this strategy work.”

 

He said the UK variant was posing huge problems to the contact tracing effort.

 

“We have talked about this (the UK strain) for a long time, because it is so hyper-infectious, and moves so fast, that it is presenting a very, very real challenge to our status, our stay-safe, stay-open, our precious thing that we’ve built — all of us — throughout 2020,” he said.

 

“Now, while we don’t have cases outside those that were notified as possible close contacts, those who had been, by virtue of who they’d been with or where they had been, while it’s not surprising that we’re seeing extra cases within those groups – and in some respects it’s pleasing that that’s where those cases are — the way in which they are presenting is a very significant concern to us.

 

“That makes it incredibly difficult, incredibly difficult — difficult to do contact tracing, because there is no gap, if you like, between when we have the first case and their close contacts and potentially others that they have spent time with.

 

“The whole process, because of the hyper-infectivity and the speed at which this moves, the whole process has been condensed down, and it is now, I am sad to have to report, it is the advice to me that we must assume that there are further cases in the community than we have positive results for, and that it is moving at a velocity that has not been seen anywhere in our country over the course of these last 12 months.”

 

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/authorities-planning-for-a-third-lockdown-as-melbourne-holiday-inn-cases-grow/news-story/65c965de86efa7f93f07d2772c4c1219