Lockdown 5.0 extended in Victoria

With the cases continuously reported in the last five days, it was inevitable. Premier Daniel Andrews made the announcement this morning. Victoria’s lockdown 5.0 has been extended by a week, after 13 more local coronavirus cases this morning.

A gift from infected removalists from NSW – the outbreak has already given the state 85 active cases and more than 18,500 close contacts are now in isolation as a result.

The authorities remain concerned about super-spreader events – including at the MCG and AAMI Park.

“We can’t run the risk that there are cases out there that we don’t know about,” he said.

“There are chains of transmission that are not yet contained that we don’t know about and if we would open up we would see how quickly this runs – we see how challenging this can become in a very short space of time. We need to avoid what is going on in Sydney at the moment. We are determined to do that.”

Of today’s cases, 12 have been linked to current outbreaks and one is under investigation.

Fortunately, nine of these have been in isolation throughout their infectious period.

“We want to see more of that – that is a credit to those people,” Premier Daniel Andrews said.

Validating the snap lockdown last week, the state’s Chief health officer Brett Sutton said the four cases who had spent some time in the community while infectious had had their movements curtailed by the statewide lockdown.

“That is a really strong sign … I can’t say yet whether we are ahead of this thing, but I do know that our contact tracers, our health team, public health units, are wrapping their arms and it and it is going in the right direction,” he said.

Of the thousands of close contacts who remain in isolation, about a third are in regional Victoria.

“This outbreak has touched the whole state and that was in a way that the Delta outbreaks didn’t do back if May and June,” he said.

“Much of that is due to the super-spreading event early on in this outbreak that took place in the MCC members’ reserve for the Geelong v Carlton game.

“Those impacts are rippling across the state. For those reasons, each of us is really going to have to double-down the keep our community safe for the next week.”

Delta strain detected in South Australia  

In addition to NSW and Victoria, South Australia will also go into lockdown from this evening, after a cluster of Delta strain COVID-19 cases grew to five.

Premier Steven Marshall said the statewide lockdown would begin at 6pm on Tuesday and is expected to remain in place for at least seven days.

“We hate putting these restrictions in place but we believe we have one chance to get this right,” Mr Marshall said.

“We are moving as quickly as we can to slow and stop the spread of this cluster.

“We know these restrictions will take a heavy toll. But we’ve always had a situation where we go hard and we go early in South Australia.

“We’ve got to stop movement around this state and we’ve got to stop it immediately.”

Also read: Scott Morrison had 2 jobs in 2021, he bungled them both

Drop in NSW daily numbers

NSW has recorded 78 more local virus infections – as authorities confirm increasing testing is picking up many people who have the virus but no symptoms. The daily infections numbers have been around 100 plus and it is a positive sign that the number of new infections seems to be dropping.

Of the new cases, at least 27 people were out and about while incubating the virus.

Speaking on radio, 3AW radio presenter discussing lockdown 5.0, opined the people in NSW were not as compliant as people in Victoria and hence the disastrous outbreak in Sydney despite gold standards of contact tracing.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian described Tuesday’s COVID numbers as a “pleasing drop” but felt too much transmission of the virus was still happening in workplaces.

The strict lockdown in NSW is not coming to an end any time soon.

Vic outbreak reaches Queensland
A Queensland woman from Mareeba in far north Queensland, near Cairns – student in Melbourne – has tested positive for the coronavirus after returning home, thinking she was leaving the lockdown 5.0 behind. The woman had visited the Young and Jackson Hotel in Melbourne – a designated COVID exposure site – on July 10 before flying to Maroochydore on July 13.

Queensland’s Acting Premier Steven Miles said the woman, who is in her 20s, was infectious in the community from July 15 to 17, especially on the Sunshine Coast.

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