Daniel Andrews insists Melbourne’s lockdown is working despite a ‘significant’ jump in new Covid-19 cases

Victoria has suffered a “significant setback” in its fight against its outbreak, but Daniel Andrews insists the strict Covid lockdown is working.

Despite locking down hard and fast, Victoria has suffered a “significant setback” in its fight against the current Covid-19 outbreak, with a worrying spike in new cases.

The state recorded 1438 new locally acquired cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of active infections to 11,018.

“We now have cases in every local government area, we have cases in every suburb,” testing commander Jeroen Weimar said. “We need to buy time to stop transmission now.”

Victoria’s grim result is the worst daily figure seen so far during the outbreak, eclipsing the highest 24-hour increase seen in Delta-ravaged New South Wales.

The continuing escalation of new cases flies in the face of a strict and prolonged lockdown, which Premier Daniel Andrews instituted early on in a bid to prevent this very scenario.

Last week, Melbourne officially became the most locked-down city in the world, having spent more cumulative days under stay-at-home orders than any other place.

Melbourne is the most locked down city and the world and was subjected to a fast and hard shut-in at the start of this current outbreak, which keeps getting worse. Picture: Getty Images

‘Failing’ lockdown decision defended

When asked today whether he accepted that the lockdown had failed, Mr Andrews insisted it had done the exact opposite.

If sweeping lockdowns hadn’t been put in place, today’s number of new cases would be much higher than 1400, he insisted.

“If you want to on the one hand urge that we open up, and then on the other hand, be critical about how many cases there are, those two things don’t work,” he said.

“Like, there’s just no logic in that.

“We can open up tomorrow, and I won’t be standing here reporting 1400 cases, I’ll be reporting a lot more than that. I won’t be reporting just a few people in hospital. There would be a lot more.”

The risk of easing restrictions too soon, while vaccination rates are still too low – currently at 50 per cent per cent of people having received a double dose – would be catastrophic, he said.

Restrictions are set to ease on October 26 when Victoria is due to hit its 70 per cent fully vaccinated rate, and ease again on November 5 when the 80 per cent double-dose milestone is reached.

“There’s a national plan,” Mr Andrews said. “We’re delivering the national plan. We are completely faithful to the national plan.”

Daniel Andrews has blamed the significant jump in new cases on people having or going to illegal house parties on Grand Final weekend. Picture: Sarah Matray/NCA NewsWire

People ‘doing the wrong thing’

In a further defence of the lockdown, authorities have revealed that much of the increase is due to breaches of current restrictions.

In fact, one-third of new cases have been linked to illegal home gatherings last Friday and Saturday celebrating the AFL Grand Final.

“We know that everyone’s fatigued, we know everyone’s tired of this,” Mr Weimar said. “But today is a significant setback in how we manage this outbreak.”

And while today’s result is concerning, Mr Andrews said it doesn’t change the state’s reopening plans – not just yet anyway.

“It doesn‘t yet because it’s only one day,” he said.

“What I’m saying to every Victorian, if we continue to see this sort of behaviour, we’ll continue to see these numbers. It’s not about one day, but if you get this each day, every day of the week, you’re putting avoidable pressure on all sorts of different systems, most notably our hospital system.”

He urged Victorians to continue doing the right thing “for another few weeks, and then we can open up, the lockdown ends”.

Daniel Andrews urged Melburnians to hang in there and look forward to an easing of restrictions when the vaccination rate hits 70 per cent. Picture: Getty Images

No public holiday regrets

Another point raised at today’s Covid-19 media update was the long weekend enjoyed by many Melburnians – including those who took it as an opportunity to break the rules.

The traditional Friday public holiday to coincide with the AFL Grand Final was kept in place, despite the game being played in Western Australia due to Melbourne’s lockdown.

Mr Andrews denied he should’ve cancelled the long weekend.

“I think Grand Final public holiday or no Grand Final public holiday … well, I put it to you, do each of you know people who have been doing the wrong thing?” he said.

“I think we all do. We all do. I’m appealing to people – we can’t change what happened last weekend, but we can’t have at a repeat of this weekend or for the next few weekends.”