Josh Frydenberg says Melbourne is the world’s most locked down city. Is that correct?

The claim

As lockdown rules ease for millions of weary Melburnians, Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has asserted that no other city on the planet has suffered for so long under these restrictions.

“[H]ere in Melbourne, very sadly, we’ve endured the longest lockdown in the world,” he said during a September 2021 interview. “Consider that. The longest lockdown in the world here in Melbourne.”

It’s a claim Mr Frydenberg has repeated several times, including in an opinion piece published on October 16. “Melbourne has gone from the world’s most liveable city to the world’s most locked-down city,” he wrote. So, has Melbourne had the world’s longest lockdown?

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

The verdict

Mr Frydenberg’s claim is not clear cut. There is no doubt that Melbourne ranks among the cities to have faced the longest and most arduous series of lockdowns. But whether it ranks as number one is questionable.

Several media articles have identified Melbourne as the city which has endured the longest lockdown, although they appear to have only considered a handful of cities in their calculations. Melbourne had been under so-called “stay-at-home” orders for a cumulative 277 days when Mr Frydenberg made his October 16 claim, five days before the latest orders were finally lifted.

But considering the generous exemptions that applied during part of the city’s first lockdown, that total is more like 257 days — illustrating the difficulty in making like-for-like comparisons without access to similar information for other cities.

However, there are enough examples to suggest Melburnians may not actually hold the crown for the most days spent locked down. In northern Chile, for example, residents in at least one city spent 287 days under strict stay-at-home orders.

And certain residents of the Philippines capital, Manila — including anyone aged under the age of 15 or over 65 — were forced to stay home for more than 450 days.

Still, Melbourne’s broad stay-at-home rules applied for more individual days than those in Buenos Aires, whose 245 days of lockdown are widely regarded as being among the world’s most gruelling. That total included 234 consecutive days of citywide quarantine, more than twice the length of any individual Melbourne lockdown.

Source of the claim

Asked for the source of his claim, Mr Frydenberg’s office sent several media stories reporting how Melbourne would wrest the title from the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires.

These reports surveyed just seven capital cities, with the Herald Sun (on September 24) and Yahoo News (on September 23) offering the most comprehensive lists. Each of the reports sent measured lockdowns on the basis of “stay-at-home orders”. As the name suggests, these orders typically require residents to remain at home unless they have one of several pre-specified excuses to go out.