Australia’s Victoria completes full week with no COVID-19 cases

Australia’s Victoria state reported its seventh consecutive day of zero locally transmitted COVID-19 cases on Friday, suggesting a three-month strict lockdown in the city of Melbourne has successfully contained a second wave outbreak.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said the state remained on track to ease travel curbs to allow movement between state capital Melbourne and other parts of the state on Sunday, but he urged people to remain vigilant.

“We can’t just pretend that seven days of zeros is like a vaccine against this virus, it isn’t,” Andrews told reporters.

A three-month lockdown was imposed in Melbourne to stall an outbreak that peaked at more than 700 new cases reported in a single day in early August.

New South Wales state on Friday reported four new cases of locally transmitted COVID-19 and another five involving people in quarantine. Australia’s other states and territories have effectively eliminated the virus.

Officials have in recent days relaxed some restrictions that had stopped people crossing internal state and territory borders.

Discover more from The Dispatch

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Verified by MonsterInsights