Daniel Andrews lockdown likely as new infections surge

The Andrews government is poised to announce a significant tightening of Covid restrictions that is likely to include a lockdown extending for at least three days from Thursday night.

Self-isolating residents take a glimpse at the outside world from their Ariele apartment complex flat in Maribyrnong, in Melbourne’s northwest. Picture: Aaron Francis

The Andrews government is poised to announce a significant tightening of Covid restrictions that is likely to include a lockdown extending for at least three days from Thursday night, after 11 new cases were identified on Wednesday, linked to two separate incursions from NSW.

The Australian understands restrictions will include wearing masks at all indoor venues and bans on visits to households, with authorities especially alarmed at the likely transmission of the virus at iconic Melbourne hotel Young & Jackson last Saturday afternoon.

A further tightening of border restrictions with NSW is likewise on the table, as health officials grow increasingly concerned about the extent to which the 11,000 people who have returned to the state under red zone permits in recent weeks have been meeting their home quarantine obligations.

Nine of the latest cases are associated with the Ariele apartment complex in Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s northwest, where a team of three Sydney removalists collected furniture from a family leaving a third-floor apartment last Thursday.

That family has been placed in hotel quarantine and all members have so far tested negative, but at least four of their neighbours have not been so lucky.

A man in his 60s and three family members from another apartment returned positive tests on Wednesday, as did the man’s 89 and 90-year-old ­parents in Craigieburn in the outer north.

Late on Wednesday, it emerged that a Bacchus Marsh Grammar teacher had also tested positive for the virus after spending time with an apartment complex resident at several venues, including the Young & Jackson hotel, opposite Flinders St station in central Melbourne, and at the MCG for Saturday’s clash between Geelong and Carlton.

The teacher has subsequently transmitted the virus to two family members, with Barwon Heads Primary School near Geelong also affected.

Other new exposure sites on Wednesday extended from the busy Highpoint shopping centre in Maribyrnong to Bundoora and Epping in Melbourne’s north, and Oakleigh in the southeast.

Separately, a child became the fourth member of a family based in the City of Hume, in Melbourne’s outer north, who has tested positive after the father returned from Sydney last Thursday, July 8.

The father breached home quarantine to visit Coles Craigieburn Central on Saturday, and on Wednesday a man in his 30s who attended the supermarket at the same time tested positive.

Covid-19 fragments have been detected in wastewater from Geelong suburbs for a period preceding both the removalists’ trip to Melbourne and the City of Hume family’s return from Sydney.

Authorities say the detection could be the result of shedding from an old Covid-19 case, but could indicate another cluster.

Covid-19 logistics chief Jeroen Weimar revealed on Wednesday that the removalists were not wearing masks while at the apartment building, and had taken almost 48 hours to reveal to authorities that they were travelling with a second truck and had visited an additional set of exposure sites at a service station and Hungry Jack’s at Kalkallo, north of Melbourne.

Authorities in South Australia cited a language barrier and said they were also seeking clarification over the location of a fuel stop visited by the removalists between Victoria and McLaren Vale, where the removalists delivered furniture before returning to Sydney via Tailem Bend last Friday night.

“Books will be thrown when it’s appropriate to throw them,” Mr Weimar said when asked whether the removalists would be punished. “I’m exceptionally frustrated at the pace and transparency of information coming from the removalists’ exposure.

“I would still not be surprised if we’re standing here tomorrow with yet another exposure site.”

At the Ariele apartments on Wednesday, Robert Bryant, 25, said he had first learnt he was living at an exposure site from a knock at the door of his third floor apartment on Monday night and a letter from the Health Department.

“Everything’s been thrown into chaos,” he said.

While he’d tested negative, he said he was concerned the virus could seep into his apartment.