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Millions of people in Melbourne and the rest of the Australian state of Victoria have to go into a tough lockdown - because of five new infections.

Because Dan Andrews, Prime Minister of Victoria, does not want to risk anything.

A second wave of Covid "slipped away" from the politician in July and ultimately resulted in a lockdown lasting over a hundred days.

"In the past 24 hours, five cases of coronavirus have been reported to the Ministry of Health," said Andrews at a press conference on Friday afternoon (local time).

This means that a cluster that broke out in a quarantine hotel at the airport has grown to 19 active cases.

This is explosive: on the one hand, the hotel is at the airport and an infected person was in a café in the terminal, on the other hand, the outbreak is the highly contagious British virus mutation.

You don't want to wait for the problem to grow, said Martin Foley, Victoria's health minister.

“We want to be one step ahead and squash it.” For this he is building on the support of all citizens.

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As was the case during the harsh, almost four-month lockdown that Melbourne went through from July to October, people are only allowed to leave their home for essential activities or for outdoor sports over the next five days.

Everyone should not move more than five kilometers away from their home.

Private visits are temporarily prohibited, and the mask requirement is back.

The Australian Open should continue - but without a spectator.

There are currently no international flights to Melbourne.

Only shops such as supermarkets, pharmacies and petrol stations will be open for the next five days, restaurants and cafes are allowed to sell outside the home.

According to Jennifer Westacott, executive director of the Business Council of Australia, the five-day curfew will entail "enormous social and economic costs."

Florists are shocked

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Especially owners of flower shops who had increased their offer on Sunday because of Valentine's Day are completely frustrated.

"We are in a state of shock and can hardly believe it," said florist Michael Pavlou in an interview with Australian broadcaster ABC.

“The timing couldn't be worse.” They would all have put so much effort into and the goods would spoil.

"It could be devastating for many small businesses in Victoria."

Prime Minister Andrews emphasized that you have to react so quickly because the British variant is so contagious and therefore spreads extremely quickly.

"This is a very real challenge for the status, the security, the open land and all the precious things that we have built up over the course of 2020."

But despite strict isolation rules for travelers and returnees, employees in Australian quarantine hotels have been infected again.

As a result, a three-day curfew had to be imposed on Brisbane last month.

A similar incident triggered a brief lockdown in Perth in early February.

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In recent weeks, there has been repeated discussion about a central quarantine station, as it used to be for newcomers to Australia, to keep diseases such as measles, typhus and smallpox out of the country.

"Victoria would probably not go into this kind of lockdown if there were special national quarantine facilities," said Queensland Deputy Prime Minister Steven Miles again on Friday.

The fact that Australia has already responded to a few cases with such drastic measures has made the pandemic fight a success.

The country has so far counted almost 29,000 infections and a little more than 900 deaths.

In addition to quickly sealing off entire cities and states, the country's strategies also include closed external borders, the aforementioned quarantine program for returnees and sophisticated contact tracing.

In order for the authorities to be able to trace hundreds or even thousands of contacts from infected people in the shortest possible time, as is now the case in Melbourne, Australians scan a QR code in all places - whether in the supermarket, in shops, in a taxi, in the swimming pool or in a café or restaurant with the camera of your mobile phone.

This process then opens either an app or a website where you enter your name and phone number.

The date and time are recorded automatically.

If it later turns out that someone with a known corona infection was on site at the same time, the health authorities can quickly inform, test and isolate people.