- Victorians will remain in lockdown for another seven days, while all of South Australia is set to enter lockdown after a new COVID-19 cluster emerged
- There are five local cases of the virus in Adelaide, all linked to an 81-year-old man who tested positive almost six weeks after returning home from overseas
- Melbourne recorded 13 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, with one of the cases under investigation as it isn’t linked to know outbreaks
- Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews extended the state’s lockdown for another week, saying the state needs to avoid having its outbreak grow like Sydney’s
- In NSW, another 78 new local COVID-19 cases were recorded today, its lowest daily numbers in almost a week
Victorians will remain in lockdown for another seven days, while all of South Australia is set to enter lockdown after a new COVID-19 cluster emerged.
Five local cases of the virus were recorded in Adelaide in the last day, all of which were linked to an 81-year-old man who tested positive almost six weeks after returning home from overseas.
South Australian Premier Steven Marshall said the state will enter a hard, seven-day lockdown to try and stamp out the spread of the highly infectious delta strain of the virus.
“We’ve moved very quickly, very decisively to stop the spread. Every single day that you let this go, you put yourself in a more difficult situation to bring it back under control,” Mr Marshall said.
“I’m 100 per cent convinced that South Australians will rise to the challenge, will make sure they can abide by these new restrictions, and make sure we get through this in as short a time as possible.”
Schools in the state will close under the lockdown, while construction work will also be paused, with residents only allowed outside for essential shopping, medical care, exercise and compassionate care.
In neighbouring Victoria, 13 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded on Tuesday, with one of the cases under investigation as it wasn’t linked to know outbreaks.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed the state’s lockdown would be extended on Monday, before announcing today it would run for another week.
Mr Andrews said if Victoria doesn’t go hard on the virus, the state could end up in a similar situation as Sydney — which has over 1100 local cases.
“This extension is not what we wanted to do but it is the only option, it’s what must be done,” Ms Andrews said.
“We see how challenging this can become in a very short space of time. We need to avoid what is going on in Sydney at the moment. We are determined to do that.”
NSW notched up another 78 new local COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the state’s lowest daily numbers in almost a week.
Five people have died so far during this latest outbreak in Sydney, while 95 people are in hospital with 21 of those patients receiving intensive care.