VICTORIA— Australia has had 17,895 coronavirus cases and 208 deaths. As of Sunday, August 2, the city of Victoria has declared a “State of Disaster” and Melbourne is in stage four lock down.
The decision to declare this is due to there being almost 700 new infections and seven deaths reported in a single day.
“If you’ve got that many cases – and they’re not just in metropolitan Melbourne, they’re in regional Victoria as well – if you have that many cases of community transmission you must assume you have even more and on that basis you can no longer be confident that you’ve got a precise understanding of how much virus is there,” said Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews during a press briefing.
Victoria will be under stage three restrictions. Cafes, bars and restaurants must be closed and all schools will turn to online learning. There will also be nightly curfews.
In Melbourne, the curfew will be between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. One individual per household will be able to go outside once a day during non-curfew hours. Moreover, that individual must stay within five kilometers, about 3.1 miles, of their homes. Restrictions may be eased for emergency or work purposes.
These rules are expected to last until at least September 13.
In response to the news, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted: “Big China Virus breakouts all over the World, including nations which were thought to have done a great job. The Fake News doesn’t report this. USA will be stronger than ever before, and soon!”
