Victoria's failed lockdown deadline

news.com.au

19 Aug, 2020 03:04 AM2 mins to read

A cyclist passes an empty Flinders Street Station during lockdown due to the continuing spread of the coronavirus in Melbourne this month. Photo / AP

Today was the day that Melbourne's original stage 3 lockdown was supposed to end.

But daily new case numbers are higher now than when it started.

It was on July 8 that Victoria reimposed stay-at-home restrictions for six weeks in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire in a bid to slow a rapid spread of coronavirus.

Back then, the state had just recorded 191 new cases, a number Premier Daniel Andrews said was "unacceptably" high.

The measures were supposed to stomp out the virus in six weeks, which brings us to today.

The state has recorded 216 new cases today which, despite dropping over several days, is still higher than the case number that sent Victoria into lockdown in July.

The state's chief medical officer, Brett Sutton, was asked today why those restrictions didn't work. He admitted the original lockdown measures were "not enough" but dismissed the idea they were a failure.

"I wouldn't say stage three restrictions didn't work," he said.

A patient has her temperature checked at a medical clinic during lockdown in Melbourne this month. Photo / AP

"There's been analysis of the stage 3 restrictions that it did bring the effective reproduction number below 1, or very close to 1, and it was up above 1.6.

"So stage three restrictions absolutely made a difference, and really, the effects that we've seen over the last week are stage three effects as well as the effects of universal mask wearing. So it did work, it wasn't enough, and it was going to slow transmission to a point, but as the Premier's mentioned recently it would've had a really, really long tail.

"We would've got into September, October, November with ongoing cases at reasonably high levels and that's an impossible situation to be in in terms of tolerating what stage three restrictions represented for us."

There have been 216 new cases in the state in the past 24 hours. That's a slight drop in cases from yesterday's total of 222 infections. It is also a drop on yesterday's 17 deaths.

It comes as disturbing details have emerged in the case of a Covid-infected family in hotel quarantine who may have inadvertently triggered Victoria's deadly second outbreak.