Australia imposes stringent new coronavirus measures on Victoria as first pandemic containment successes crumble

The new coronavirus outbreak that worries Australia 0:51

(CNN) - About 5 million people in Melbourne, Australia's second most populous city, face some of the most severe restrictions ever imposed on the city, after authorities declared a "state of disaster" on Sunday. .

Police patrolled the deserted streets Sunday night, imposing a nightly curfew from 8 pm to 5 am as part of the stage four blockade measures imposed to combat a growing coronavirus outbreak.

Those restrictions include a curfew in Melbourne for the next six weeks, a ban on wedding gatherings, and schools must return to online classes. Only one person per household can leave their homes once a day, outside of curfew hours, to collect essential items, and they must remain within a 5 kilometer radius of their home.

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New trade restrictions were announced on Monday, including the closure of non-essential industries.

The state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the largest city, recorded 429 covid-19 infections on Sunday, up from 671 cases the day before, according to Victoria health professor Brett Sutton. Thirteen new deaths were also announced, bringing the state's total to 136, and there have been a total of 11,937 confirmed infections.

Sunday's announcement underscores how quickly early success in containing the virus can be unraveled.

In May, Australia introduced itself as a global model for managing the outbreak, which started with early measures to ban high-risk countries from entering. Then came tighter reductions in social gatherings, expanded testing, restaurant and bar closings, as cases increased, and some states sealed their borders.

But covid-19 cases in Victoria have suddenly increased in recent weeks, with many new infections in nursing homes and among healthcare workers. Eight of the 13 new deaths on Sunday are related to known outbreaks in nursing homes.

"This six-week period is absolutely critical," Victoria State Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said at a daily press conference on Monday. "This is a very difficult day and there will be many more until we reach the end."

Andrews clarified how the new restrictions will affect businesses, and said that supermarkets, butchers, banks, gas stations, kiosks and post offices will remain open.

Starting at 11:59 pm local time on Wednesday, some businesses such as retail, some manufacturing and some administration will close. The industry cuts include construction and meat jobs, which Andrews said was "a major challenge for us."

Storage, distribution centers and meat-processing plants will cut operations by a third and impose some of the "strictest security protocols ever implemented in an industrial environment." The workers will be "dressed like health workers," Andrews said, wearing masks and gowns, shields, temperature controls and tests to detect the coronavirus.

About 250,000 people are no longer employed by the virus in the state of Victoria, and new industry restrictions mean that number is likely to double, Andrews said. Around 500,000 people currently work from home.

"The full impact of this pandemic, which now has months, will take us years to recover. There is no doubt about it, "he said.

Difficult measures will be "very difficult, but it is what is necessary" to reduce coronavirus numbers, he said, "so at the end of six weeks we have every chance of getting this back under control."

It's hard to imagine what stage five would be like. But it would radically change the way people live. It determines not only when and where you can shop, but also shopping restrictions, "said Andrews, referring to the most stringent measures that could potentially be implemented in the future.

Melbourne residents had already been under strict measures for most of July after the area was identified as the epicenter of Australia's second wave.

Ben Fessey, 30, an agricultural produce broker living in Melbourne, said there was a "strong mood on the streets" before the new restrictions took effect on Sunday.

"It appears to have just been ongoing," he said, adding that the different measures were "blurring."

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Victoria State Prime Minister Daniel Andrews speaks during a press conference in Melbourne on August 2, 2020.

Fessey said there is some frustration, but "there is no point in there being marches or protests about what I have seen. Everyone still agrees for the common good.

Outside the Melbourne metropolitan area, the Victoria region will be put under Stage Three restrictions starting at midnight on Wednesday, which means that cafes, bars and restaurants must be closed. All schools in Victoria will also return to online learning.

Police patrol cars are now a common image in Melbourne, as authorities seek to enforce regulations on leaving home and the mandatory use of face masks.

On Saturday, Australian Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said an additional 500 employees of the Australian Defense Force were on standby to join 1,400 soldiers who were already helping with the coronavirus response in Victoria.

How did the situation get worse?

The increase in cases and the restrictions of a month has made Melbourne an unusual case for the rest of the country.

New South Wales reported 13 new cases on Sunday, South Australia two, and Queensland recorded zero cases.

Andrews said Sunday that the state has 760 "mystery cases," where "we can't trace the source of that person's infection."

"Those mysteries and that community broadcast is in many ways our biggest challenge and the reason why we need to move to a different set of rules," Andrews said.

Professor Sharon Lewin, director of the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity, said the increases in numbers observed in Victoria were not occurring in the rest of Australia.

"What happened in Melbourne were some gaps as a result of the quarantine, transmission of people in quarantine to the security guards at those hotels and then spread among the communities linked to those security guards," said Lewin.

Last month, Australian officials launched a judicial investigation amid allegations that the coronavirus outbreak in Victoria was triggered by some contract workers who were not following protocols at a hotel used to quarantine people arriving from other countries, including the fact of having had sexual relations with people in quarantine.

“We have also had outbreaks in some industries, which is quite common worldwide. We are also seeing outbreaks in housing projects, so we are seeing different affected communities, which is much more difficult now. Community transmission, people living in places with high population density, so the problem is greater, "said Lewin.

On Friday Andrews said more than 130 people, one in four who tested positive, were caught defying orders to stay home. The teams sent to monitor infected people were increased to 34 teams, he said. Previously there were 3.

"Both the Victorian and national level public health experts will spend the next day or two looking at the data at the six-week point, the midpoint of the home confinement orders we implement," Andrews said in a daily press conference on health.

On Sunday, Victoria's opposition leader Michael O'Brien blamed the government's "flaws" in "hotel quarantine, testing, and contact tracing has led millions of Victorians to be subjected to the most severe restrictions in our history ».

- CNN's Rob Picheta contributed to this report.

Australiacovid-19 Quarantine Melbourne