Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia is experiencing a ‘Victorian wave’ not a second wave on Wednesday morning shortly before Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews was set to announce the new COVID-19 cases (set to be 295) at 11.45am. Mr Morrison added that the spike in cases is having an impact on the country’s economy.
“It is clear that the Victorian wave that Australians are now experiencing – that’s how I honestly have to describe it, there’s not a second wave that’s going across the rest of the country, that is not occurring. There is a significant Victorian wave, but that Victorian wave is impacting the national economy more broadly,” he said, adding that restaurant bookings and employment figures in other states were down due to the Victorian outbreak.
Mr Morrison had discussed the issue of paid pandemic leave with Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter, and added that there were “ongoing discussions between government employee groups and employes on a range of issues around managing the pandemic.”
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The federal government, when announcing the country’s recovery plan in April, had hoped that the nation would be largely opened up by July, however the clusters in Melbourne had changed the prognostics. As a result, Mr Morrison cannot state when the country would be back on track though he has been “encouraged” by the situation in NSW and other states and territories, except for Victoria.
“I think once we get a better read on where these numbers are in Victoria and hopefully we will see better numbers from Victoria today, but we do not know,” he said.
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