Melbourne (AFP)
Australia announced a curfew in Melbourne on Sunday to fight the resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the country's second city, whose residents will no longer be allowed to go out more than three kilometers from their homes.
Despite a lockdown introduced in early July, Melbourne continued to register hundreds of new cases daily. The local authorities have therefore decided to put in place a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. for the next six weeks.
Declaring a "state of disaster" Sunday, Daniel Andrews, Prime Minister of the State of Victoria (south-east), explained that the state capital was moving to "phase 4" restrictions until September 13 because of "unacceptably high" contamination levels.
Melbourne residents will not be allowed to go out for more than an hour of sporting activity during the day, and within three miles of their home.
Only one person per household will have the right to shop each day, also within a radius of five kilometers.
A few weeks after returning to class, most of the students from schools and universities will resume classes online from midnight Wednesday, while nurseries and other childcare facilities will be closed from Thursday.
Weddings are canceled in the city until further notice. At the height of the first wave of the pandemic, marriages had been limited to five people in Australia.
"We made these decisions because doing less than that will not protect us," said Andrews. "Doing less than that will make the problem go on for months and months."
"The time for laxity is over, the time for warnings is over," said Andrews. "If you are not home when you should be, if you have the virus and go on with your normal life, steadfastness will apply. There are lives at stake."
Further restrictions on workplaces will be announced on Monday, he said, suggesting that non-essential activities could be halted.
The state of Victoria recorded 671 new cases of Covid-19 and seven deaths on Sunday.
Outside of Melbourne, the rest of the state will move to phase 3 of containment from midnight Wednesday. Residents will only be able to leave their homes to work, go to school and buy basic necessities.
Other Australian states, easing restrictions, have reported no or very few new cases for weeks. But they closed their doors to the inhabitants of Victoria and Sydney (south-east), another point of contamination.
In total, nearly 18,000 cases of the new coronavirus and at least 208 deaths have been recorded in Australia, which has a population of some 25 million.
© 2020 AFP