Melbourne, some regional areas to re-enter lockdown after 191 new coronavirus cases
By Noel Towell
Updated July 7, 2020 — 5.42pmfirst published at 2.06pm
Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister for Health Jenny Mikakos provide an update on the COVID-19 situation in Victoria.

Residents in those areas will be barred from leaving their homes for any purpose other than work, food, exercise, or medical care.

The Mornington Peninsula is within the boundary of metropolitan Melbourne and will be included in the lockdown zone, although Geelong is not.

People in the lockdown zones are expected to stay at their principal place of residence for the duration of the six-week lockdown and not travel to holiday homes or second homes in regional areas.

"These are unsustainably high numbers of new cases," Premier Daniel Andrews said. "We know we're on the cusp of something very, very bad if we don't take these steps today."

He said it would be impossible to continue contact tracing at a sufficient level to suppress and contain the virus.

Without a widespread lockdown, the virus "will quickly spiral well and truly out of control", the Premier said.

"We have to be realistic about the circumstances we confront ... this is not over. A sense of complacency has crept into us ... each of us knows someone who has not been following the rules as well as they should have."
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victori ... 559tk.html

2h ago 13:18
There have been teething problems in Australia with the permit system allowing people to cross the border between New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria when the border closes tomorrow, according to ABC News.

Forty-five minutes after launching on Tuesday, the webpage to apply for a permit apparently stopped working.

Although functional when it launched shortly before 7:30pm on Tuesday night local time, by 8:15pm visitors were unable to apply for permission to enter NSW.

The border between Australia’s two most populous states is to close on Wednesday after a spike in Covid-19 cases in Melbourne.
The outbreak in Victoria’s capital has seen hundreds of cases in the past two weeks – more than 95% of new Australian infections.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... es-near-3m

Get me out of here!

are any Aussies actually complaining about their new neo-fascist state though?

Jerry Atrick wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 3:17 pm Melbourne has 5 million people in its metropolitan area.

They will lock them down because of less than 200 ill people.

Madness.

No, they lock them down because of how many people 200 people would go on to infect. It's almost like breeding rabbits/cats (not really that bad but hoping to create a visual picture for you). You must have seen the graphics of how the rate of infection grows exponentially?

172,000 permits have been issued for people to cross the Victorian border . What lock-down are we talking about.

ooo

God'sGift wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 2:11 pm are any Aussies actually complaining about their new neo-fascist state though?

No, Plauge/pestillence/natural-disaster (god's gift)
They are too busy going mad in 100 other ways, but not that.

Ps, actions by a democraticly elected government that have the overwhelming support of the citizenry is not called neo- facism.

No room for more Aussies. Flight numbers of incoming Australians to be slashed almost in half.

National Cabinet decides to restrict international arrivals by a third to focus on Melbourne coronavirus spread
By political reporter Jordan Hayne
Posted 5hours ago, updated 33minutes ago
The number of Australian citizens and residents allowed into the country will be slashed to ease pressure on state and territory coronavirus quarantine systems and free up resources to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne.

National Cabinet has agreed to cut the number of people coming home to Australia from approximately 7,000 to just over 4,000 each week, which amounts to a reduction of about a third, according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

States and territories have complained of the burden of hosting returning Australian residents and citizens in hotel quarantine, with Mr Morrison flagging earlier this week that a limit would be introduced.

"We agreed today to a reduction in the number of inbound arrivals into Australia across those ports that are able to accept returning Australian citizens and residents," Mr Morrison said after National Cabinet met this morning.

Federal Government figures show that over the month to this week 28,000 people entered Australia, most of whom were quarantined in New South Wales.

Mr Morrison acknowledged the decision would make it more difficult for citizens to come home, but insisted it was in the national interest.

"There will be continuing access to Australia but the number of available positions on flights will be less, and I don't think that is surprising or unreasonable in the circumstances that we find ourselves in," he said.

"The decision that we took to reduce the number of returned travellers to Australia at this time was to ensure that we could put our focus on the resources needed to do testing and tracing."

The changes will be in force from Monday, and Mr Morrison said Australia's international intake would be reviewed "as the weeks go by".
News that the Government planned to reduce the number of people allowed into Australia have sent a wave of concern through Australian citizens waiting out the coronavirus pandemic overseas.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-10/ ... e/12441932