Should Victoria lift the lockdown restriction?

Scott Morrison has urged Victorian leaders to put an end to the state’s snap lockdown “as soon as possible”.

Victoria was plunged into a week-long shut down at the end of May, initially forecast to end on June 3, but extended for another week after the state continued to recorded local cases.

The lockdown is the state’s fourth since the beginning of the pandemic and has caused friction between the state government and struggling businesses.

/ Prime Minister Scott Morrison

The Prime Minister on Monday told reporters he was “hopeful” restrictions would be lifted “as soon as possible”.

“I would be urging that we move toward lifting those restrictions as soon as possible,” he said while speaking from Sydney.

“Hopefully (we) see Victoria opened again soon. Particularly for those parents who are having to keep their kids at home away from school. Kids have lost enough time out of school, over the course of the last 18 months.”

A leading epidemiologist on Monday warned it was unlikely Melbourne’s two-week lockdown would be lifted before Friday, as the state continued to battle an aggressive and persistent outbreak.

Victorians were hit with a blow on Monday, with news the state recorded nine new coronavirus cases – the highest single-day increase since May 27. But all of those were linked.

/Professor Catherine Bennett

Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, said authorities would have more of an idea about the length of the current lockdown by midweek.

“I think we’d be lucky to see the lockdown lifted early now,” Professor Bennett told ABC News.

“I think they’ve still got some work to do and they’ll probably make a decision by Wednesday if it continues to look as we’ve seen in the last few days where the majority of cases are known and expected.

“If they see anything else, that might shift things again.”

There are concerns Melbourne’s lockdown will be extended again.

The increase in cases, paired with the emergence of a mystery outbreak of the new Delta strain, has fuelled concerns the city’s lockdown could be extended.

While the hard lockdown was extended for Greater Melbourne, regional Victorians were recently granted more freedoms.

These include scrapping the travel limit and five reasons for leaving the home, while hospitality venues were allowed to offer dine-in experiences, with caps in place.

Retail and beauty services are also back, as is junior sport, while libraries are open.

Brett Sutton, Victorian Chief Health Officer on the other hand commented, 

We are dealing with a variants of concern. I don’t want to say it is some order of magnitude more dangerous.

 

/ Victorian Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton

We consider all options. It is fair to say we have 300 those sites across metropolitan Melbourne, and they are very broadly spread. We know those primary close contacts. We have still seen some mystery cases, cases were we don’t know where they have acquired it across Metro Melbourne. And we are differentiating regional and Metro Victoria. We will continue to review in light of the activity that we see.”

In comparing with lockdowns in other states, Sutton said, “No one has handled similar outbreaks. Outbreaks previously across the country have often been single cases who have had some community exposures. We have seen a circuit breaker lockdowns, it is not as though they haven’t occurred, they have occurred a couple of times in Perth, a couple of times in Brisbane, with single cases or just a couple of cases.”.

And about finish lockdown at coming Thursday, Sutton explained, “It’s not something I can speak to now. It’s early days still. It’s frustrating. People want to know what things will look like three days from now. We see different changes every day and they can be something from left field, there can be something very short in terms of new linkages, no wastewater deductions, no new exposure sides, we need to see it play out.”

So, at least we need to wait and see.