Eight new cases have been recorded today, two of which will be officially reported tomorrow.
From 8pm tonight, Victoria will go into a snap seven day lockdown to cut off the spread of coronavirus cases. With a growing list of exposure sites, including places like Al-Taqwa College in Truganina, pharmacies, cafés and football clubs in Melbourne’s west, this snap lockdown will be used to prevent this fast-moving virus from spreading any further.
“We only get one chance to act fast,” said Premier Dan Andrews. “My fear is if we were to wait a few days, there’s every chance that instead of being locked down for a week, this gets away from us and we are all locked down until we get vaccinated.”
The lockdown begins at 8pm tonight, not midnight like in previous lockdowns. This is because there was an outbreak at Ms Frankie’s the night last lockdown was announced.
“Go home. Go home and start the lockdown. Don’t go out and about,” said Andrews.
This is the sixth lockdown Melbourne has had during the pandemic. Melbourne was barely out of the fifth one, with restrictions eased only last week.
Restrictions for this lockdown are a repeat of previous lockdowns in Melbourne. This includes restrictions such as five reasons to leave your home, wearing a mask indoors and outdoors and not travelling outside the 5km radius.
The five reasons to leave home are:
- Getting vaccinated
- Shopping for food and supplies
- Authorised work or education if it can’t be done from home
- Care and caregiving
- Exercise for up to two hours and no more than 5km from home
A sewerage test has been detected in Wangaratta, so there is reason to believe that there is COVID within that community. As a result, to avoid this from spreading any further, regional Victoria will be under lockdown as well.
“Please go and get tested as soon as you register symptoms,” urged Andrews. “Please follow the rules.”
To see the list of COVID exposure sites, click here.
For the Premier’s statement, click here.