Dan’s Covid relapse: virus setback as Andrews shuts down Victoria for six weeks
Victoria’s second lockdown risks killing off the weak recovery and sparks warnings that thousands of businesses could go under.
More than five million Victorians are set for a long and bitter winter in isolation, with the economic consequences likely to last for decades, after a record 191 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday forced the Andrews government to order a six-week lockdown of metropolitan Melbourne.
The second lockdown — just eight weeks after rules began easing from the first — risks killing off the already weak economic recovery, endangering hundreds of thousands of jobs and sparking warnings that thousands of businesses could go under.
It follows the Andrews government’s bungling of its hotel quarantine system, which led to more than 60 COVID-19 cases in security contractors and their close contacts, with a high proportion of the state’s current cases genomically linked to those clusters.
On Tuesday Victoria was battling 772 known active cases of coronavirus, 44 per cent of which were outside local government areas with existing locked-down postcodes. In the past week there have been 157 cases in the state with no identified source.
The new lockdown will apply from 11.59pm on Wednesday, extending across all of Melbourne’s 31 local government areas, including the Mornington Peninsula to the southeast, but not Geelong to the southwest, as well as taking in the Mitchell Shire, immediately north of the city’s outskirts, which had seven active cases on Tuesday.
Announcing the move after crisis meetings that went long into Monday night and resumed on Tuesday, Premier Daniel Andrews said he had been left with no choice.
“There’s no alternative other than thousands and thousands of cases and potentially more, many, many people in hospital, and the inevitable tragedy that will come from that,” he said.
On Tuesday there were 35 Victorians in hospital with COVID-19, including nine in intensive care.
Mr Andrews said aspects of his second lockdown went further than the first. “But we are in many respects in a more precarious, challenging and potentially tragic position now than we were some months ago,” he said.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said his advice to the Andrews government to shut down Melbourne for the second time was “certainly awful advice to have to give to any government”. However, he said public health experts were overwhelmingly of the view that it was necessary.
“There is a unanimous view that this is required to avoid absolutely catastrophic outcomes,” Professor Sutton said.
As South Australia moved to harden its border closure from midnight on Wednesday and NSW blockaded the Murray for the first time in a century from midnight on Tuesday, Mr Andrews said he had asked the federal government for 260 additional ADF personnel, some of whom would assist hundreds of police in patrolling the perimeter of the lockdown zone.
Numberplate technology will also be used to catch anyone trying to break out of the “hard” boundary. From Wednesday night, Melburnians will only be allowed to leave their homes to shop for essentials, seek medical care, provide essential care to a loved one, visit an intimate partner who lives separately, and attend to work or study which cannot be done from home or exercise.
No visitors will be permitted within private homes, and public gatherings will be limited to two.
In an apparent concession that previous prohibitions on golf, fishing, boating, tennis and surfing served no public health purpose, those activities will be permitted.
Unlike the last lockdown, Melburnians and Mitchell Shire residents will not be permitted to stay at second residences if they are outside the lockdown area. Those currently on holiday will be allowed to complete their holiday, but no new leisure travel is permitted after the lockdown begins.
Funerals will be limited to 10 people and weddings to five, while religious ceremonies will be broadcast only, and auctions will also be held remotely, with house inspections by appointment only.
Amid cases linked to more than 20 schools, including the state’s second-biggest cluster of 90 cases Al-Taqwa Islamic College in Melbourne’s west, the government extended school holidays for a week for all but Year 11, 12 and special needs students, who will return to the classroom on Monday.
A decision on whether other year levels will return to home schooling is yet to be made.
Shops, food markets and hairdressers will remain open, but cafes, restaurants and pubs will be takeaway only.
On the banned list are community and indoor sport, food courts, cinemas, theatres, concert venues, casinos, brothels, beauty and personal care services, holiday accommodation and camping, swimming pools, play centres, playgrounds, saunas, galleries, museums and zoos.
Mr Andrews said his government was yet to do any modelling of the potential impact of a second lockdown on the state’s economy, but knew Victoria was in for a “very difficult time”.
State Treasury modelling described by Treasurer Tim Pallas as a “worst-case scenario” when it was released in late April predicted a 14 per cent decline in gross state product, an 11 per cent peak in unemployment in the September quarter, and the loss of as many as 270,000 jobs.
“Ultimately, the public health response system has to lead, and then we’ll provide the support, the stimulus to try and repair the economic damage this virus is doing to the entire economy, to families. That’s significant, of course, but life is more important,” Mr Andrews said.
Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Paul Guerra said the second shutdown would devastate Victoria’s economy as he called on the federal government to extend JobKeeper in the state for at least an additional two months.
“Victoria is now at least two months behind the rest of the country,” he said.
“It’s our view that JobKeeper should be extended for at least two months for Victorian businesses.”
Mr Guerra said everyone understood the state was gripped by a health crisis but the six-week lockdown coupled with the NSW border closure meant significant job losses were inevitable as the regions floundered without the income from tourism.
“People have only just started reopening back to where they were two months ago,” he said.
A Deloitte Access Economics Business Outlook report released on Monday found Victoria, which accounts for about a quarter of the nation’s GDP, was particularly exposed to the coronavirus downturn due to its reliance on international students and visitors.
Victorian director of Ai Group Tim Piper said the second lockdown would be “another kneecapping” for the already exhausted state economy.
“I think it will be worse than the first lockdown because businesses have been struggling and their capacity to return again will be impacted,” he said.
“Companies have used up many of their resources and despite the federal governments support this is just going to be another kneecapping.”
Payroll jobs fell by 7.6 per cent in Victoria between March 14 and June 13, according to the ABS, representing the greatest decline of all the nation‘s states and territories.
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