VICTORIA will go into a statewide lockdown for a week from midnight Thursday, Acting Premier James Merlino has announced.
Under the “circuit-breaker” lockdown, which is slated to end at 11.59pm on June 3, there will be five reasons to leave home: food and supplies, authorised work or education, care and caregiving, exercise and getting vaccinated.
Face masks will need to be worn everywhere except the home, and exercise and shopping will be limited to 5km from home, with shopping limited to one person per household per day. Those with no shops in their 5km radius may travel to the nearest shops.
Schools across the state will close for the duration of the lockdown, as will non-essential retail stores, dining-in service at restaurants and cafes, pools, gyms, hairdressers, beauty services and cultural and entertainment venues such as cinemas, tourism and art galleries.
Supermarkets, food stores, petrol stations, pharmacies, bottle shops and banks will remain open.
Private and public gatherings will not be permitted, but people may exercise for up to two hours with one other person. Visits between intimate partners are allowed and there will be bubbles for those living alone.
Visitors to aged care facilities will be banned except for limited reasons, while visitors to hospitals will be restricted to those supporting a partner during birth, a parent accompanying a child, or end of life reasons.
Funerals will be limited to 10 people plus those running the service, while weddings must be called off unless end of life or deportation reasons apply.
Community sport will not go ahead this weekend, while professional sport will proceed but without crowds. Places of worship will be closed and only broadcast services will be available.
Childcare centres will remain open and schools will only be open for children of essential workers and vulnerable students. All other students will move to remote learning.
Mr Merlino said he understood how hard the latest lockdown would be on Victorians, but said “we must follow public health advice”.
“We’ve seen overseas what happens if this thing gets away,” he said.
“My view is that as tough as this is for everyone, I think people appreciate that we’ve just got to do this and Victorians have shown what a brilliant job they do.”
The lockdown is in response to Victoria’s latest COVID-19 outbreak, which now stands at 26 cases, after 11 new cases were recorded overnight. Victoria has a total of 34 active cases and more than 40,000 Victorians took coronavirus tests on Wednesday.
Authorities are rushing to contain the outbreak of the highly infectious COVID-19 Indian variant, with more than 150 places across the state marked as exposure sites, including a hairdresser in Bendigo and a football ground in Cohuna.
Contact tracers have locked down more than 10,000 primary and secondary contacts of infected people.
“They’re doing extraordinary work,” Mr Merlino said.
“They have never ever worked as hard, as fast, and as effectively as they are right now. But despite that, this variant is moving at a faster pace.”
Mr Merlino also announced Victorians over 40 are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.
“From tomorrow morning, vaccinations at state sites will be expanded to include those in the 40 to 49-year-old age group, for the Pfizer vaccine,” he said, before urging those eligible to book their jab.
“If people get vaccinated, it keeps our community safe. We would not be in this position that we are today, this necessary and difficult position … if our vaccination rates were much higher than they are right now.”
Mr Merlino also took aim at the Federal Government’s handling of the vaccine rollout and quarantine.
“The reason why we are dealing with this outbreak today is because of a hotel breach in South Australia,” he said.
“That is not a criticism, it is just a fact, we have had breaches in hotel quarantine right around our country.
“If we had an alternative to hotels for this particular variant of concern, we would not be here today. If we had the vaccine, the commonwealth’s vaccine program effectively rolled out, we may well not be here today, talking about these circuit-breaker restrictions that we must impose to keep our community safe.”
