Victoria plunged into third lockdown

Natasha Boddy and Tom McIlroy

Feb 12, 2021 – 6.15pm

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Business and the federal government are fuming over Victoria’s snap five-day coronavirus lockdown as public health experts warned the “extreme” shutdown of the entire state could be disproportionate to the risk posed by the latest outbreak.

Almost 6.5 million Victorians were forced into their third lockdown in less than a year as authorities scrambled to contain an outbreak centred on the Holiday Inn, which climbed to 13 cases on Friday, all believed to be the highly infectious UK strain of COVID-19.

Natasha Boddy is Work & Careers reporter with The Australian Financial Review. She was previously a homepage editor and online producer.

Tom McIlroy is the Financial Review’s Canberra bureau chief based in the press gallery at Parliament House. He was previously the AFR’s political correspondent.