7 days lockdown announced for Victoria as cases rise

7 days  lockdown announced for Victoria as cases rise

Victoria has been plunged into the state’s sixth lockdown as  8 locally transmitted Covid-19 cases were confirmed on Thursday morning, with three of those infections under investigation, sending contact tracers scrambling.  Among the latest cases is a woman who works at Al-Taqwa College, a school that was the centre of a large outbreak in Melbourne last year

The lockdown will last for seven days  from 8:00pm tonight (Thursday) and there will only be five reasons for leaving home including getting groceries and supplies, exercise for a maximum of two hours , care or caregiving, authorised work or education that cannot be done from home and getting vaccinated.

Speaking to media, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he had “no alternative” but to take lockdown action across the entire state.

“I would prefer we didn’t have to make this decision,” he said on Thursday afternoon, additing it would be “unlikely” for the lockdown to lift any sooner.

“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to have to be here doing this again. But with so few in the community with one vaccination let alone two, I have no choice.”

Authorities are bracing for a fresh Covid-19 outbreak at Al-Taqwa College, in Truganina, outside Melbourne, amid concerns a teacher, who lives in Hobsons Bay, may have unknowingly been infectious for days.

Urgent genomic sequencing is underway for this case, along with one of their household contacts and a case who lives in Maribyrnong. Three other cases announced today are close contacts of the Moonee Valley case.

Al-Taqwa College – which recorded 210 cases during Victoria’s catastrophic second wave – has again been shut, with the more than 300 staff and 2095 students ­ordered into immediate ­isolation.