MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, will ease its third deadlock on Wednesday and allow spectators to return to the Australian Open tennis tournament after a five-day absence.
Rod Laver Arena will have 7,477 spectators – about 50% of its capacity – for the final four days of the first Grand Slam event for 2021, tournament organizers said.
Up to 30,000 tennis fans a day had been allowed in three areas instead of the tournament, Melbourne Park, before the blockade of Victoria.
Victoria Prime Minister Daniel Andrews has previously said health officials will decide the number of tennis crowds.
“We’re going to end up with crowds in a lot of different places,” Andrews said. “We will end up with people who will be able to move freely, because this short, sharp switch has worked.”
The blockade was applied throughout Victoria, with a population of 6.5 million people, to prevent the virus from spreading in the state capital.
Most restrictions will be lifted from 11:59 p.m. after no new infections have been detected in the last 24 hours, Andrews said.
Schools and businesses will reopen.
But people will still be required to wear masks, and home visitors will be limited to five people until February 26, when the last of the 25 active cases of COVID-19 will no longer be infectious.
All cases were followed at a hotel at Melbourne Airport, where passengers are quarantined for 14 days upon arrival from abroad.
The companies complained that the blockade, announced just hours before it took effect last Friday, disrupted Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day festivities.
All tennis spectators were expelled from Melbourne Park at 11:30 p.m., so they had time to get home before the stay-home order came into effect. Many booed when they left. The Australian Open has continued without spectators since.
Some business leaders have described the latest blockade as an exaggerated reaction.
“It is clear that testing and tracking were the keys to addressing this potential outbreak and not the blockage that was disproportionate to the risk,” said Australian Industry Group Group chief Tim Piper.
“We need to learn from this deadlock and adjust the responses accordingly,” Piper added.
Andrews would not guarantee that there will be no more blockages announced shortly.
“I’m not prepared to claim the Victorian community is over,” Andrews said.
Melbourne came out of a 111-day deadlock in October following a new wave of infections that hit a maximum of 725 cases a day. This was largely attributed to lax infection control procedures at two quarantined hotels in Melbourne.
At the time, the rest of Australia was tightening restrictions due to the low number of cases, following an initial deadlock at national level.
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McGuirk contributed from Canberra, Australia.