Victorians are waking to their fifth lockdown of the pandemic this morning as the state recorded a further six coronavirus cases, taking the number of active cases to 36.
A five-day snap lockdown was announced Thursday afternoon in a bid to curb the state’s growing coronavirus outbreak.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said only a hard lockdown would get the state on top of the current outbreak, though he hinted regional Victoria may exit prematurely pending COVID-19 case numbers.
“You only get one chance to go hard and go fast,” he said.
“If you wait, if you hesitate, if you doubt, then you will always be looking back wishing you had done more earlier. I am not prepared to avoid a five-day lockdown now only to find ourselves in a five-week or a five-month lockdown.
“That is why we are making this very difficult decision and why I know Victorians will, despite the pain and difficulty of this, know and understand there is no option.”
Concern over stranger-to-stranger transmission
There are 75 exposure sites, 1500 primary close contacts and 5000 secondary close contacts. Three schools are closed, including Bacchus Marsh Primary School.
A teacher from the school attended an AFL match between Carlton and Geelong at the MCG on Saturday with a resident of the locked-down Ariele Apartments in Maribyrnong. Yesterday, three new cases were linked to the match, including two stranger-to-stranger transmissions.
Up to this point, all cases could be linked to each other. Testing commander Jeroen Weimar said the current outbreak was “very aggressive”.
“This is possibly two examples of stranger-to-stranger transmission between the individuals that we know about,” he said.
“We do not believe they are known contacts of the other two positive cases we know were there. That gives us significant cause for concern.”
Thirty new exposure sites were also added to the list yesterday, including two gyms. A positive COVID-19 case attended Persist Fitness in Werribee (July 13) and QuickFit Health Club in Point Cook (July 12-14).