Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
Number of people under stay-at-home has reached around 12 million in Australia after Melbourne went in to snap lockdown following two more local cases of covid.
The latest outbreak brings the total number of virus cases there to 18, who will be put under contact tracing exercise now. This is the fifth lockdown for Victoria since the pandemic began and authorities say this was inevitable keeping in view the fast spreading of the infection.
Melbourne and the rest of Victoria will join Sydney lockdown, state premier Dan Andrews said, as Australia battles an outbreak of the Delta variant.
The largely Covid-free country has recorded nearly 1,000 cases of the strain nationwide in the last month.
Andrews said he took the decision to return Melbourne to its fifth lockdown with a heavy heart but it was necessary.
“Nothing about this virus is fair,” he said, describing how just 18 cases in Victoria had mixed with thousands of contacts who must now be traced and tested.
Residents in the state of 6.6 million people will have to stay home except for food shopping, essential work, exercise and getting vaccinated. This decision means about 40% of Australia’s population is now under a stay-at-home order.
New South Wales is also in a five-week lockdown which will last until the end of the month. Sydney now has about 1,000 cases, primarily caused by the highly infectious Delta variant.
Australia has used lockdowns and swift contact tracing to combat the virus when cases have breached its strict border controls. Only around 12% of Australia’s adult population is fully vaccinated till now.
Vaccine rollout has been affected by widespread hesitancy around the AstraZeneca vaccine, following cases of rare blood clots linked to the jab.
Australia has till now recorded 911 deaths and more than 31,000 cases of covid since the pandemic began.
