A night-time curfew will once again be imposed on Melbourne as health authorities further harden the city’s lockdown in response to mystery cases, illegal gatherings and children spreading the virus.
“I don’t want us to finish up like Sydney where it has fundamentally got away from them. They are not reopening any time soon. They are locked in until they get pretty much the whole place vaccinated. That will take months,” Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews said, while extending Melbourne’s sixth lockdown for another two weeks.
The curfew will be from 9pm to 5am and will be imposed for two weeks from 11.59pm tonight to run alongside an extension of the lockdown, which will also result in a return to workers permits as playgrounds also being shut to curb the spread of the virus. The curfew is among the raft of tougher measures in Victoria as cases climbed to 22 on Monday.
The only reason people can leave their homes after curfew begins is for work, medical care and caregiving.
Premier Andrews said that the curfew was introduced following advice of Chief Health Officer Jeroen Weimar.
He added that outdoor exercise is still allowed, though gyms and community sports are closed but he said exercise “is not an opportunity for seven families to catch up in the park” and should take place with only one other person. “So it’s you and one other person from your household or dependants,” he said.
In response to signs that compliance with restrictions had fallen compared to other weeks, Mr Andrews stressed that mask-wearing would continue indoors and outdoors, and added that people would no longer be allowed to lift their masks, even when outdoors, to take a sip from an alcoholic beverage.
“You will no longer be able to remove your mask to drink a cocktail at a pop-up beer garden on a footpath as part of a pub crawl,” he said.
“Religious broadcasts, they will be further limited. Same crew. You can’t have a reinvolving crew every week. It has to be the same people who produce those broadcasts, as important as they are, each and every time,” Premier Andrews said, pointing to limitations to the way religious programmes are broadcast now that churches have been shut.
Only essential workers will be able to go to work and they will need to be in possession of a travel permit.
“If you are an essential worker, you will need a permit, just like you did last year. Also for the purposes of higher education, for the purposes of attending – some students need to attend their tertiary institution, then you will need a permit,” he said.
“We’ve done this before, we know it is challenging, but we will do it again because we have to limit the number of people who are moving around, many of whom are choosing to go to work when they don’t need to go to work. They can work from home and they must work from home.”
The measures today came after ministers and senior health officials were locked in meetings to review the need for stronger measures.
On Sunday, Victoria’s Premier said, “There are a number of mystery cases and those numbers continue to grow and that is really challenging. These numbers are too high.”
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In NSW, cases climbed to 478 on Monday with seven deaths as the Delta strain continued to spread through the city, however there has been no curfew imposed as yet, making Melbourne the only Australian city with such a restriction.
The Australian Capital Territory recorded 19 new cases and has extended the lockdown which was set to end this Thursday for another two weeks until 2 September.