Victoria holds off locking down for now but masks indoors are back as Covid-19 outbreak spreads
The Andrews government has opted to not lock down but reimposed mask rules after 11 cases linked to NSW were detected.
The Andrews government has opted to hold off on locking down Victoria today, after 11 cases linked to two incursions from NSW were detected.
State cabinet and health officials met long into the night on Wednesday, with the Health Department issuing a late night mask mandate for all public indoor spaces from midnight.
Following a national cabinet agreement that lockdowns would be a last resort, the government has opted to tighten density limits in public spaces and and impose caps on household visits rather than impose what would be the state’s fifth lockdown.
Premier Daniel Andrews is expected to address the media late on Thursday morning, but no time for the press conference has yet been confirmed.
Victorian health authorities reimposed the wearing of masks indoors to contain a growing outbreak of Covid-19 sparked by Sydney’s Bondi cluster, which has forced five million people to comply with stay-at-home orders until at least the end of the month.
Alarm grew among health officials when a coronavirus case at Barwon Heads Primary School, 110km southwest of Melbourne, took to 11 the number of positive tests in Victoria’s latest outbreak.
The Health Department announced masks would again be mandatory in all public indoor locations, effective as of 11.59pm, giving Victorians just 90 minutes’ notice.
Seven of the cases revealed on Wednesday are included in Thursday’s numbers.
Reported yesterday: 10 new local cases and no new cases acquired overseas.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) July 14, 2021
- 15,161 vaccine doses were administered
- 27,061 test results were received
More later: https://t.co/lIUrl1hf3W#COVID19Vic#COVID19VicData [1/2] pic.twitter.com/1otg5WIzZW
A case in a fourth member of a family in the City of Hume local government area in Melbourne’s north who recently returned from Sydney was included in Wednesday’s numbers.
The other three members of that family had earlier tested positive, with one family member’s breach of home quarantine rules to visit Coles Craigieburn Central last Saturday now linked to a case in a man in his 30s who tested positive on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s other new cases are all linked to a team of three Sydney removalists, who infected a man in his 60s and a separate household of three while collecting furniture from a third household on the third floor of the Ariele apartment building in Maribyrnong, in Melbourne’s west.
The man in his 60s in turn passed the virus on to his 89 and 90-year-old Craigieburn-based parents, and a Bacchus Marsh Grammar teacher with whom he went to the Young & Jackson pub in central Melbourne on Saturday afternoon, before attending the Geelong vs Carlton AFL match at the MCG.
In what represents a fourth generation of transmission since the removalists visited Melbourne just last Thursday, July 8, the Bacchus Marsh Grammar teacher has transmitted the virus to two family members, one of whom is a member of the Barwon Heads Primary School community.
Both Bacchus Marsh Grammar, 60km west of Melbourne, and Barwon Heads Primary school, 110km southwest of Melbourne near Geelong, have closed, with students and teachers ordered to get tested and isolate until further notice.
The number of exposure sites in Victoria blew out to 72 overnight and now includes Flinders Street and Jolimont train stations, trains to and from Footscray in Melbourne’s west, trams in Flinders Street and Footscray, and an Officeworks and service station in the Geelong suburbs of Waurn Ponds and Highton.
The list also includes multiple sites at the Highpoint shopping centre in Maribyrnong, the Maribyrnong aquatic centre, and sites in Epping and Bundoora in Melbourne’s north and Oakleigh in the southeast.
Western Australia closed its border to Victoria as the number of cases grew and South Australia announced arrivals from the state needed to obtain a test within 24 hours.
West Australian police met players from the Geelong AFL club on the tarmac in Perth after the Cats arrived for Thursday night’s game against Fremantle at Optus Stadium. The Cats were to undergo testing immediately before the game, which has finals ramifications for both clubs.
At least three AFL sides including the two Sydney-based teams will leave Victoria on Thursday because of rising concerns about the Covid-19 situation in the state.
The Swans and GWS Giants, which are set to spend the rest of the season travelling because of the lockdown in Sydney, will leave for Queensland this morning.
They had been due to play against each other in Ballarat on Saturday, but the match will be relocated.
The Western Bulldogs will also depart Melbourne earlier than expected for their clash against the Gold Coast Suns and will take a large squad as a precaution.
No decisions have yet been made regarding crowds for matches played in Victoria this weekend but discussions are continuing with Covid-19 exposure sites growing by the hour.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said the Sydney clubs, the Giants and the Swans, were likely to spend the remainder of the season on the road due to their home city’s lockdown.
Told that Western Australia had shut its borders to Victoria, he said: “It is just as well we are flexible and agile. That is in real time’’.
Other travellers on Qantas and Virgin Australia flights into Perth on Wednesday afternoon were given the option of going back to their departure point, rather than stay in the West Australian capital and spend 14 days in hotel quarantine.
Victoria weighed tougher restrictions as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced a widely expected two-week extension of Greater Sydney’s lockdown, now in its third week, as the number of infectious cases in the community remained unacceptably high.
“I appreciate people are stressed and upset about what is going on, myself included,” Ms Berejiklian said. “None of us want to be in this situation.”
NSW recorded 97 new cases of the virus in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, 24 of whom were active in the community while infectious. A further seven people had been identified in isolation, but only for part of their infectious period.
Ms Berejiklian said it was the number of people who were both infectious and active in the community that needed to be brought back towards zero before restrictions could be eased.
“The 24 number is what we need to get down to as close to zero as possible before we end the lockdown,” she said.
CBA head of Australian economics Gareth Aird said a Melbourne lockdown would cause significant impact to the national economy while Sydney remained under stay-at-home-orders.
Mr Aird said that, although it was “premature” to begin factoring in the impact of another Melbourne lockdown, he estimated the weekly hit to GDP would be $1bn – equivalent to the impact of Sydney’s shutdown.
Victoria’s growing outbreak of cases has been linked to three Sydney removalists who did not wear masks while unloading furniture at an apartment in the city’s west.
There are steps we can take right now to protect ourselves and each other. That’s why, from 11:59pm Wednesday 14 July, face mask rules will change for Victorians aged 12 and above. [1/4] pic.twitter.com/KE1FD0cYSP
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) July 14, 2021
Victorian officials were debating the lockdown as alarm grew about a likely transmission of the virus at Melbourne hotel Young & Jackson last Saturday afternoon as fans flocked into the city ahead of an AFL match.
About 2000 of the nearly 32,000 fans who attended Geelong’s win over Carlton at the MCG last Saturday have been advised to isolate immediately and undergo testing on Wednesday.
Late on Wednesday, it emerged that a Bacchus Marsh Grammar teacher had tested positive for the virus after spending time with an apartment complex resident at several venues, including the Young & Jackson, opposite Flinders St station in central Melbourne, and at the MCG for the Geelong-Carlton game.
The teacher has subsequently transmitted the virus to two family members, with Barwon Heads Primary School also affected.
The Andrews government was poised to announce a significant tightening of Covid restrictions — likely to include a lockdown extending for at least three days from Thursday night.
A further tightening of the border restrictions with NSW is also likely, 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.
A NSW government official said the state’s crisis cabinet considered only a two-week extension of the lockdown and not longer or shorter options. Investigations are continuing into the source of 36 cases identified, with 45 others known to be infections caused by household contacts.
Ms Berejiklian said areas of concern remained the Fairfield local government area, which continued to record the highest number of infections, but also Roselands, Rosebery, Canterbury, Sutherland Shire, St George, Windsor, St Ives, Penrith and the Bayside local government area.
In Fairfield, residents formed long queues for drive-through testing on Tuesday after the government announced that essential workers who worked outside the Greater Sydney region would have to ensure they tested negative for the virus every three days.
The announcement prompted a rush on testing facilities and chaotic scenes that led to queues of up to eight hours for a test, including well past midnight, prompting an apology from NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet.
“Can I just, on behalf of the government, apologise to everyone in Fairfield for this significant inconvenience,” Mr Perrottet said on 2GB. “But also thank them, because it’s the sacrifice that they’re making … that keeps people safe.”
Officials once again reiterated their message that the virus was indiscriminate about whom it sent to hospital, with 71 patients currently receiving treatment and 20 people in intensive care units.
NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said of those in ICU, five were aged under 40, five were aged in their 50s, and a further five were aged in their 60s.
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