Morrison points finger at Victoria over COVID-19 outbreak

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the Melbourne outbreak is damaging the whole nation’s economy, branding it “the Victorian wave”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pointed the finger at Victoria over the nation’s growing coronavirus outbreak, labelling the latest spike “the Victorian wave”.

“It is clear that (it’s) the Victorian wave that Australians are now experiencing; that’s how I honestly have to describe it,” Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra Wednesday morning.

“There’s not a second wave that’s going across the rest of the country; that is not occurring.

“There is a significant Victorian wave, but that Victorian wave is impacting the national economy more broadly.”

Mr Morrison said the COVID-19 outbreak within Victorian aged care facilities was “very distressing”.

He urged workers to stay home and isolate if they showed symptoms, with the COVID-19 blowout in aged care putting at risk both lives and Australia’s economic recovery.

The ongoing Victorian outbreak has heightened doubt over when domestic border restrictions can be lifted.

Mr Morrison’s comments come as Queensland announces it will close its borders to the greater Sydney region, as growing clusters within the Australia’s most populous city rise.

The Prime Minister said the impacts from the southern cluster had been reflected in the latest weekly payroll figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which show Victorian jobs have fallen 7.3 per cent compared to the start of the pandemic.

The ‘Victorian wave’ threatens the broader economy, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

“It’s in the national interest from a health and economic perspective that we ensure Victoria wins here,” Mr Morrison said.

“It is principally coming through the infection of staff more broadly in the community, many cases completely unaware of that infection, and by the time they became aware of that infection, then obviously they’d been in those facilities,” he said.

The Federal Government has deployed AUSMAT teams to combat the Victorian coronavirus, with 430 aged-care facilities in Melbourne grappling with the disease.

Mr Morrison said the 750 healthcare workers who had been infected with COVID-19, mostly in Victoria, had fallen ill as a result of community transmission.

AUSMAT will oversee Victoria’s response to ensure numbers begin to stabilise.

The Prime Minister said the situation at St Basil’s aged care home in Fawkner had started to normalise, however the situation at Epping Gardens remained volatile.