Melbourne’s lockdown extension confirmed as six new cases recorded

The extension on Victoria’s “circuit breaker” lockdown has been confirmed for Melbourne after six new Covid-19 cases were recorded overnight.

Victoria’s “circuit breaker” lockdown has been extended for parts of the state after days of rising Covid-19 infections.

The lockdown was originally set to end at 11.59pm on June 3, but now the tough restrictions will remain in place in Melbourne for another seven days.

Six new locally acquired Covid-19 cases were confirmed overnight, bringing the state’s cluster to 60.

Of the new cases, one is linked to the Stratton Finance cluster and has been in quarantine, one is linked to the Brighton Beach Hotel, another is from Victoria who holidayed in NSW’s Jervis Bay, with his spouse and two children also testing positive.

More than 51,000 test results were received in 24 hours and more than 20,500 vaccine doses were administered.

Reported yesterday: 6 new local cases and no new cases acquired overseas.
- 20,585 vaccine doses were administered
- 51,033 test results were received

More later: https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco#COVID19Vic#COVID19VicDatapic.twitter.com/x1EhMbKNjC

— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) June 1, 2021

From 11.59pm on Thursday, June 3, there will still only be five reasons to leave home for Melbourne residents, including shopping for food and supplies, authorised work and study, care and care giving, exercise and getting vaccinated.

The travel radius for exercise and shopping will be expanded to 10km. Students in years 11 and 12 will also be able to return to face-to-face learning from Friday, June 4, including students in other years that are undertaking a Unit 3/4VCE subject.

A number of outdoor jobs will also be added to the authorised work list, including things like landscaping, painting installing solar panels or letterboxing. Restrictions around mask wearing will remain in place.

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Staff wearing PPE are seen among massive queues at a pop-up Covid test site at Albert Park Lake in Melbourne. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

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Acting Premier James Merlino said even after the seven-day extension, it was unlikely anyone with long weekend plans would be able to travel outside Melbourne for the Queen’s Birthday holiday. Some restrictions would likely be in place in some form until after the long weekend, which goes from June 12-14.

“At the end of another seven days, we do expect to be in a position to carefully ease restrictions in Melbourne. But there will continue to be differences between the settings in Melbourne compared to regional Victoria,” he continued.

“I want to be upfront with people. Even if all goes well, we won’t be able to have people from Melbourne travelling to regional Victoria during the Queen’s birthday long weekend.”

Mr Merlino urged people to go and get vaccinated, warning if the virus is left to run its course then cases “will explode”, adding the government had “no choice” but to extend the lockdown for Melbourne.

“If we don’t do this, this thing will get away. This variant of concern will become uncontrollable and people will die. No-one wants to repeat last winter,” he said.

The highly transmissible nature of the kappa variant is believed to be one of the major reasons for the lockdown extension.

This strain was first detected in India and has since spread to more than 40 countries, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) identifying it as a “variant of concern” as it appears to be much more infectious than other strains.

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The Acting Victorian Premier, James Merlino, gives a coronavirus update. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Paul Jeffers

Regional Victoria will escape the lockdown extension, with authorities now finalising the details around this change.

The government has proposed a number of restrictions that will ease from 11.59pm on Thursday, June 3. These include:

• Removing the five reasons to leave home, with no limit on the distance you can travel from your home.

• Travel to Melbourne is only allowed for permitted reasons and you must follow Melbourne restrictions when there.

• Up to 10 people can gather outdoors, with children under 12 months not included in that limit.

• Food and hospitality will reopen for seated service only, with a limit of 50 people per venue, subject to the four square metre rule.

• All students, teachers and staff will return to school on Friday, June 4

• Retail can open and personal services such as beauty and tattooing can resume for services where masks can remain on.

• Religious gatherings and ceremonies are permitted for 50 people plus one faith leader indoors or outdoors.

• Limits for weddings will be 10 people and funerals will be capped at 50 people.

• Junior outdoor community sport will return and adults will be able to resume training outdoors.

• Outdoor pools, including swimming classes can operate with a limit of 50 people, applying the four square metre rule.

• Libraries and can open with a cap of 50 people subject to density requirements.

• Outdoor seated entertainment, seated and unseated will have a patron cap of 50 people or 50 per cent of the venue’s seating capacity, whichever is lower.

Businesses not impressed with lockdown extension

The Victorian government announced it would be adding a further $209 million on top of the $250 million business package that was announced on Sunday.

Businesses restricted by one week of lockdown can claim a $2500 grant and those restricted by two weeks of lockdown can claim $5000.

Licenced hospitality venues impacted for two weeks by the lockdown can claim up to $7000.

Despite this, impacted Victorian businesses are still likely be less than impressed with the decision to extend the lockdown.

Melbourne’s Chapel Street Precinct General Manager, Chrissie Maus, said the economic and social impacts of the latest lockdown have been “monumental”.

“Even just seven days of the lockdown has had breathtaking monumental economic costs that no government grant could even come close to covering. The social impact is even worse and one that keeps me awake at night,” she told news.com.au.

“Small businesses are again making heartbreaking decisions about whether to lay-off staff or destroy inventory, especially given the latest Victorian government trader support package is a joke and now nicknamed the ‘nothing package’.

“It’s embarrassingly disproportionate to the harrowing financial losses. For example, many Melbourne restaurants would have lost a minimum $40,000 this weekend and might be given $2,500 to $3,500 from the government (if they are lucky). What is being given to businesses is equivalent to crumbs.”

WHO adviser and University of NSW Professor Mary-Louise McLaws said from an epidemiological perspective, Victoria’s cluster was still growing, meaning a lockdown extension is necessary.

“It’s growing and it’s growing fast and hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down,” she told news.com.au.

“There should not be any discussion yet of lifting restrictions,” she said.

“I can’t see them lifting restrictions for another seven days. At the moment this cluster doesn’t show any signs of ending.”

‘Fleeting transmission’ a cause for alarm

Victorian authorities say people are becoming infected with covid after just “brushing past” strangers with the virus.

Testing Commander Jeroen Weimar said on Tuesday at least four of the state’s locally transmitted cases have come from “fleeting” contact between Victorians.

“What we’re seeing now is people are brushing past each other in a small shop, they are going to a display home, they are looking at photos in a Telstra shop,” he said.

“This is relatively speaking, relatively fleeting. They do not know each other’s names, and that is very different from what we have been before. This is stranger to stranger transmission.”

He said this is the “fastest moving outbreak” to hit Australia.

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Shopping strips in Melbourne where there has been Covid-19 community transmission. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

Chief health officer Professor Brett Sutton said this variant is “more infectious than anything we saw in the beginning and middle of 2020”.

At least one in 10 of the current cases have caught the virus in casual contact settings, not workplaces or home settings where authorities would expect transmission to occur.

“We have to take a path where we drive this virus back down completely so that we can get control into the longer term. The fact that we are seeing transmission in some of these casual tier 2 exposure sites or even tier 3 exposure sites means we have to re-examine those sites,” Professor Sutton said.

“We have to reach out to people in some of those exposure sites and ask them to quarantine rather than just test and isolate because of the more contagious strain.”

There are now more than 350 exposure sites across Victoria, with thousands of close contacts already sent into isolation.

Mystery cases are also another major cause for concern for health authorities, with contact tracers still struggling to figure out how a staff member, a woman in her 50s, at aged care facility Arcare contacted the virus.

The case was the first mystery case linked to the current outbreak.

“That of course is a significant concern for us, and we’ve got everybody focused on trying to identify where that’s come from and any other exposure that she may have had,” Mr Weimar said.

The woman worked at the facility on Wednesday and Thursday last week, authorities say.

It’s believed that she was infectious during this period, before she developed symptoms on Friday, when she immediately got tested.

Virus linked to multiple aged care settings

Multiple aged care facilities have been forced into lockdown after either recording Covid-19 cases or having staff linked to confirmed cases.

Menarock LIFE aged care in Heathmont was reportedly sent into lockdown yesterday

after a staff member was confirmed as a primary contact of a confirmed case.

The Age reports that an all-staff email confirmed the contact, with the site going into lockdown just before 6pm last night.

It follows other lockdowns at BlueCross Western Gardens aged care facility in Sunshine and Arcare Maidstone Aged Care Facility.

It comes after the government announced a five-day vaccination blitz for workers in aged care and the disability sector.

Starting from today and running until Sunday, employees in these areas will be given priority access to walk-in vaccination hubs.

New figures have confirmed that less than 10 per cent of the nation’s aged care workers are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, prompting a warning that “lives are at risk”.

The Department of Health revealed that only 32,833 aged care workers have received two jabs of the vaccine.

There are more than 300,000 Australians working in the aged care sector. The new figures also confirm that 39,874 aged care workers have secured one dose.

On Wednesday afternoon, the ABC also reported that a second resident of the the Arcare Maidstone centre has been infected with Covid-19, bringing the facility’s cluster up to five, after a worker at Arcare tested positive on Sunday.

Originally published as Melbourne’s lockdown extension confirmed as six new cases recorded