MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, will begin its third blockade on Friday thanks to a fast-growing COVID-19 cluster focused on hotel quarantine.
The five-day blockade will be applied across Victoria to prevent the virus from spreading in the state capital, Victorian Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said.
The Australian Open tennis tournament will be allowed to continue, but without spectators, he said.
Only international flights that were already in the air at the announcement of the blockade will be allowed to land at Melbourne Airport. Schools and many companies will be closed. Residents are required to stay at home, except for exercise and for essential purposes.
A population of 6.5 million people will be blocked from 23:59 until the same time on Wednesday, due to a British contagious variant of the virus first detected in a hotel in Melbourne Airport, which infected 13 people.
Andrews said the spread rate called for drastic action to prevent further growth in Melbourne.
“The game has changed. This is not the 2020 virus. It is very different. It’s much faster. It’s spreading a lot easier, “Andrews told reporters. “I am confident that this short, sharp switch will be effective. We will be able to stifle this. ”
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 hotels in Melbourne where international travelers were forced to quarantine for 14 days.
At the time, the rest of Australia was tightening restrictions due to the low number of cases, following an initial deadlock at national level.
Some Australian states have imposed border restrictions on travel from Melbourne. Federal lawmakers rushed to the national capital Canberra on Friday to attend parliament on Monday, fearing the Australian government of the Capital Territory would restrict their entry.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt visited Melbourne to inspect the factory of biotechnology company CSL Ltd., where a local version of the AstraZeneca vaccine is being made.
Morrison said before announcing the blockade that he was confident the state government could manage the cluster.
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t confident,” Morrison told reporters. “I just flew from Sydney today. That’s why I’m here. As usual, my business is here in Melbourne today. ”