Victoria’s sixth lockdown: All the new rules

Victorians face strict new rules, with only a handful of reasons to leave the house. Here’s everything you need to know.

Victorians will only have a handful of reasons to leave their home over the next seven days after being plunged into their sixth lockdown.

From 8pm on Thursday, there will be only five reasons to leave home:

• Shopping for essential goods and services
• Work or study if you can’t from home
• Caregiving
• Exercise for up to two hours a day
• To get vaccinated.

“If we don’t follow the rules and stick together, if we don’t have that sense of common purpose and be as stubborn and determined as this virus, then, we just look to what is happening in other parts of the country and that will happen here,” Premier Daniel Andrews said.

“We don’t want that. That’s why these difficult decisions have been made.”

Victorians have been plunged into another lockdown. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

The lockdown was implemented just a week after the state exited its fifth.

Mr Andrews said the earlier lockdown time of 8pm aimed to stop groups gathering in hospitality venues ahead of lockdown.

It comes after Cremorne restaurant Miss Frankies became an exposure site last month, with the virus spread in the hours before the midnight lockdown came in.

“There was transmission on the night of the lockdown last time,” Mr Andrews said.

“This evening you must go home and begin that lockdown. Don’t be out and about because all you might be doing is spreading the virus.”

The week-long lockdown will come into effect from 8pm on Thursday. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

The government has decided on seven days because of three mystery cases in the community, with the situation to be monitored daily.

He said it was possible the cases were not linked.

Mr Andrews said he did not want Victoria to end up in a similar scenario to NSW and that snap lockdowns would be a “reality” for Victorians until 80 per cent of the population was vaccinated.

“We only get one chance to act fast, only one chance to make difficult decisions that are the right decision,” he said.

“I would prefer to wait two or three days, I would prefer we didn’t have to make this decision now.

“The advice to me from the experts if we were to wait even just a few days, there is every chance, instead of being locked down for a week, this gets away from us - we are potentially locked down until we all get vaccinated.”

The government is expected to announce support for businesses on Friday.

The government is expected to announce business support packages on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

Victoria recorded eight new locally acquired Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, with three of those unable to be linked to an existing cluster.

Of the eight cases, one is a man aged in his 20s who lives in Maribyrnong and works at a factory in Derrimut.

The second is a teacher aged in her 20s at Al-Taqwa College in Truganina.

Her partner, also aged in his 20s, has become the third positive infection.

Both reside in the Hobsons Bay council area and the man played Aussie rules at Newport Football Club.

Health Minister Martin Foley said the government had nothing to say on the snap lockdown yet. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

The fourth and fifth cases are two of his family relatives, both close contacts who live in a separate household.

They returned positive results on Thursday morning, with their infections to be included in Friday’s daily update.

The remaining three cases were all linked to the infectious traffic controller at the Moonee Valley testing site and were in isolation for their entire infectious period.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says “if this gets away from us - we are potentially locked down until we all get vaccinated”. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

The positive teacher at Al-Taqwa College was announced just hours after Victorians celebrated achieving a “doughnut day” of zero new cases as they emerged from their fifth coronavirus lockdown.

The health department said the source of the woman’s infection remained a mystery and household contacts were being urgently tested.

Victoria went into its fifth lockdown last month after 10 local cases on July 15, but all cases were all linked to known outbreaks.

In the two days prior to that, four local cases were recorded after the virus jumped the border from the deadly Delta cluster in NSW.

Al-Taqwa College in Truganina has recorded a mystery Covid-19 case. Picture: Kylie Else

Mr Weimar said health officials believed the teacher may have been infectious while teaching at the school on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week.

All staff, students, families and visitors – about 2400 people – who attended the school on July 28, 29 and 30 have been ordered to get tested immediately and quarantine for 14 days.

Here we go. 6 cases for Lockdown 6? #springsthttps://t.co/yakLROVuYl

— Shannon Deery (@s_deery) August 4, 2021

Al-Taqwa College spokesman Terry Barnes said in a statement the campus had been “completely shut down” and would likely remain closed for 14 days.

Victoria has recorded more than 220 cases linked to the two outbreaks that jumped the border from Sydney’s deadly Delta cluster – one from a team of Sydney removalists who transited through the state and the other from a family who returned to Melbourne’s north from a NSW red zone.