Police checkpoints have been set up at the main level crossings.
Melbourne, Australia:
Buyers in Australia’s second largest city stripped supermarket shelves on Wednesday as millions of people in Melbourne prepared for a return to the virus, with warnings that the new restrictions could cause a health crisis mental.
Five million residents have been reinstated in a six-week lockout starting from midnight Wednesday to Thursday, as the soaring community transmission of the coronavirus brings more than 100 new cases a day.
134 other infections have been detected in the past 24 hours – small compared to tens of thousands in hard-hit countries like the United States and Brazil, but considered a major peak in Australia, which had otherwise managed to contain the COVID- 19.
The country’s largest supermarket chain, Woolworths, said it had reimposed purchase limits for items, including pasta, vegetables and sugar, after shoppers rushed to stores in the city. ‘State of Victoria.
Experts have warned that people around the world will have to get used to the “new normal” of activation and deactivation restrictions as new clusters emerge and disappear, while the economic and health repercussions of the measures will also lead to worries.
“As frustrating as it is, I support (the foreclosure) – but ask me again in six weeks,” Michael Albert, a stoic Melbourne resident, told AFP.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the foreclosure of Melbourne would cost the economy up to A $ 1 billion ($ 700 million) a week, telling public broadcaster ABC that the burden “would be heavy on businesses”.
“This is not the situation that anyone wanted to be in, but it is the reality that we have to face,” said Prime Minister Daniel Andrews.
Restaurants and cafes will be limited to serving take-out meals, while gymnasiums, beauty salons and cinemas will be forced to close again.
Residents will be limited to their homes, except for work, exercise, medical care or to buy essential items – a return to social isolation that was only recently lifted.
Professor Michael Kyrios, clinical psychologist at Flinders University, warned that Victoria therefore had to prepare for an “upcoming mental health crisis”.
Guards replaced
“This will likely place the mental health system in a precarious position with a very limited ability to mobilize resources in response to the increased incidence of mental illness resulting from the COVID crisis,” he said.
Health officials say they have linked numerous cases of Melbourne coronavirus to hotels where residents returning from abroad were quarantined.
Local media reported that security guards broke infection control rules – including allegedly having sex with guests held in isolation – prompting the government to replace private contractors with prison staff and initiate an investigation.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the country is now considering limiting the number of citizens returning from abroad, after Victoria began diverting international flights to other cities to ease the burden of its quarantine facilities.
“There is currently a volume that can be taken over by (other) states and territories, but they certainly would not want to see this increase,” he told reporters in Canberra.
Thousands of health workers knock on the door in the hardest-hit areas of Melbourne, urging residents to get tested for the coronavirus, officials say around 10,000 people have refused after being influenced by misinformation. line.
About 3,000 people in the city have already been locked inside their homes since Saturday in the strictest response to coronavirus in Australia to date after the emergence of a cluster in a public housing estate.
A total of 75 cases were detected in the densely populated towers during a major test blitz.
Long queues of cars were saved Wednesday at the Victoria border after neighboring New South Wales closed the border for the first time in the pandemic – essentially isolating the state from the rest of Australia.
The hastily announced decision left residents of border towns struggling to get permits to cross for work or other essential reasons, while school vacation travelers were rushing home.
Police checkpoints have been set up at the main level crossings and drones are monitoring large parts of the vast border, a man who was arrested on Wednesday after allegedly trying to cross illegally.
Australia has recorded almost 9,000 cases of coronavirus and 106 deaths.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
