From Reuters:
“Millions of Australians brace
for lockdowns amid Melbourne virus outbreak”
Five million Australians face a
heavy police clampdown from midnight on Wednesday to contain a flare-up of
coronavirus cases, with checkpoints to be set up around Melbourne to ensure
people stay at home. State police said they would conduct random checks of
vehicles on major roads surrounding the country’s second most populous city,
creating a “ring of steel” as partial lockdowns are reinstated for six weeks to
stem a surge in infections. “The community can expect to see...checkpoints
anytime and anywhere,” Victoria state police said in a statement. Melburnians
will be allowed to leave home only for essential business for the next six
weeks. Cafes, bars, restaurants and gyms will shut again. The renewed lockdown
follows the closure of the country’s busiest border, between Victoria and
Australia’s most populous state New South Wales, on Tuesday night. “The rest of
the country knows that the sacrifice that you’re going through right now is not
just for you and your own family, but it’s for the broader Australian
community,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said during a televised media
conference. Morrison said he would take a proposal to a national cabinet of
state and territory leaders on Friday, seeking to slow down the number of
Australian citizens and permanent residents returning home from overseas. The
two groups have been the only arrivals allowed since Australia closed its
international border in March. New Zealand announced on Tuesday that its
national airline will not take new inbound bookings for three weeks to reduce
the burden on overflowing quarantine facilities. In Australia, red flags have
been raised by potential quarantine breaches that the Victorian state
government believes led to returnees spreading the virus. Officials have begun
an inquiry. Melbourne is the capital of Victoria state, which reported 134 new
infections on Wednesday, down from the previous day’s record 191 but well over
the low single digit daily increases elsewhere in the country. Fears of a
broader second wave were underscored by an official report of three new
COVID-19 cases in the national capital, Canberra. Two of the infected people
had returned from Melbourne last week, and the third was their housemate. In
Sydney, authorities were scrambling to track down 48 passengers who were
allowed to disembark a flight from Melbourne overnight without being checked
for COVID-19 symptoms. The resurgence of the virus and imposition of fresh
containment measures will make it tougher for the government to get the economy
back on its feet as it sinks into its first recession in three decades. Federal
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the border closure and Melbourne lockdown would
cost the economy up to A$1 billion ($700 million) per week.
BORDER CONTROL: At the Victoria and NSW border, police
checkpoints caused delays of more than an hour for drivers. The state line is
heavily trafficked by daily commuters who live and work on either side. “I got
a permit but with all the checks, my commute across was heavily delayed,”
Amanda Cohn, who crosses the border from her home in NSW each day to reach the
Victorian hospital where she works, told Reuters. “Plenty of others need to get
across and they don’t have a permit.” Authorities had hastily set up a system
to issue travel permits for a select group, but a website created to dispense
passes crashed soon after its launch. Victoria’s only other internal border,
with South Australia, has been closed since mid-March. Among the new COVID-19
cases in Melbourne on Wednesday were 75 occupants of nine public housing towers
that were placed into complete lockdown last week, barring their 3,000
residents from leaving for five days. Nationwide, Australia has reported about
9,000 COVID-19 cases and 106 deaths from the virus.
^ I can understand locking down a
city or a region because of an outbreak, but I can not understand how any
country (Australia, New Zealand or any other place) can be allowed to ban their
own citizens from returning home. Banning foreigners from entering is
understandable, but not your own citizens. Any country that resorts to such
measures has no right to call itself a Democracy or even a real country. A
country can place returning citizens in quarantine for the health and safety of
its citizens (both those returning from overseas as well as those that never
left), but this is something seriously wrong when a Government Official bans
their own citizens from returning home. I personally would never want to live
in such a dystopian place that would allow that to happen. ^
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