The Australian state of Victoria, which has the second largest city of the nation, Melbourne has been ordered to impose lockdown restrictions.
The city of Melbourne will enter a snap lockdown as two more local cases of the delta variant of coronavirus were found.
The latest outbreak of Delta variant brings the total number of cases to 18.
This is the fifth lockdown for Victoria since the pandemic began and will last until Tuesday. As compared to overseas, the situation is still 100x better and under-control.
How Did The New Cases Emerge?
Melbourne had largely fared well in avoiding new positive cases despite an outbreak in neighboring state of New South Wales which home to Australia’s largest city, Sydney.
But earlier this week, a team of Sydney furniture movers travelled to Melbourne that caused a spread in cases in the city.
“You only get one chance to go hard and go fast. If you wait, if you hesitate, if you doubt, then you will always be looking back wishing you had done more earlier,” Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews said.
“I am not willing to avoid a five-day lockdown now,” Daniel Andrews added. If he does so, he will only to be forced into a much longer snap lockdown later on.
Lockdown Restrictions
Melbourne residents are ordered to stay home except for going food shopping, essential work, workouts and getting vaccinated. The population of the region is over 6.5 million.
The new restrictions mean that about 40% of Australia’s population is now under a stay-at-home order.
New South Wales is also in a five-week lockdown which will last until the end of the month.
Sydney now has about 1,000 cases, primarily caused by the highly infectious Delta variant of COVID that emerged in India.
Vaccine Rollout Status
Australia has been able to use lockdowns and swift contact tracing techniques in order to combat the virus up until now but this strategy is fading out.
Only around 12% of Australian adult population have been fully vaccinated at the time of writing this article.
A lack of supplies, specifically of the Pfizer shot indicates that many will not be able to get a jab until the end of the year.
Vaccine rollout has been affected by widespread hesitancy around the AstraZeneca vaccine, following cases of rare blood clots linked to the jab.
