Fastest method to blockdown retail full#

The lockdown will also see Greater Melbourne virtually cut-off. Cafes, restaurants and bars will be allowed to serve takeouts, while cinemas, beauty salons, gyms and swimming pools close their doors completely. Under new stay at home orders coming into effect on Wednesday, most 6.4 million Victorian residents are being urged to work from home. The health crisis will see Victoria totally isolated from the rest of the country as borders all around close. The sharp uptick is forcing businesses and industries to shut down again, barely a month after reopening. Now the lockdown in Melbourne has spread from those 12 hotspot postcodes to the whole Greater Melbourne area, Getty Images

This followed a flare up among residents of those estates.

Fastest method to blockdown retail full#

suburbs of the city, nine public housing estates were placed under full stay-at-home orders on July 4, as authorities battle the COVID-19 outbreaks. Medical staff at public housing flats in Melbourne, Australia. What Does A Return To “Hard Lockdown” Mean? The inquiry has been given to September 25 to deliver its findings. Australia’s Health Minister, Greg Hunt, has told authorities to 'throw the book' at anyone who has breached quarantine protocols. The scandal and deteriorating situation in Victoria is undermining the grip on the disease and relatively low level of infection Australia-wide. The company has so far declined to comment.Īs well as sleeping with quarantined guests, Sky News reports, security firms also “allegedly charged fees for shifts that were never worked, paid security guards in cash and made up names for staffers who never existed.” The health department has refuted such links. According to the paper’s sources, subcontractors for MSS Security possibly worked at the North Melbourne and Flemington public housing estates, which has a cluster of some 53 cases. Now The Age claims that the security company at the hotbed virus hotel also provided guards for a Melbourne public housing estate–another Covid hotbed under hard lockdown since Saturday.Ĥ2 people including guards, their families and close contacts have so far been infected as a result of that outbreak, it reports. “Guards shook hands and shared lifts, some had just six hours of infection control training, some were caught sleeping on the job and quarantined families were allowed to go between rooms to play cards and games.” The revelations were first made to Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun. And that “security personnel wore personal protective equipment for up to eight hours without changing it.” Security staff and “quarantine-hotel insiders” claim hotel guards slept with guests during quarantine the newspaper says. Positive Covid tests taken during quarantine include security guards and “a household contact of a confirmed case.” AFP via Getty Imagesģ1 cases stem from the biggest hotel outbreak at a 5-star luxury hotel in Melbourne The Australian reports. According to a statement from the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, evidence points to a number of coronavirus cases arising from the hotels. A judicial inquiry is currently underway into the scandal. A number of coronavirus cases in Melbourne and possible source of the recent outbreak have been linked to the hotel quarantine program with accusations of security guards having sex with guests. since Australia’s travel ban saw the country’s borders close in March. The virus containment method, which “was the envy of the world just a few weeks ago,” was within 24 hours “brutally exposed” notes .Īll arrivals in Australia must self-isolate for 14 days in their hotel rooms. “Some of the quarantine contracts were sub-contracted to smaller operators, a practice that drives down wages and muddles responsibility.” All those guards are under gag orders (though one has broken that to speak out). Three firms were initially assigned to the job. Particularly into the role of security guards in “infection control breach”. The state leader has launched a $3 million judicial inquiry into the “bungled quarantine program”, as The Age puts it.

The finger is being pointed at private security contractors involved in Victoria’s hotel quarantine system. “It’s obviously now escaped hugely,” Tingle told Late Night Live host Phillip Adams. It looks like it all came from one hotel, and a few security guards having a good time,” said the ABC’s chief political correspondent, Laura Tingle. Since the Australia travel ban came into force in March, all travelers returning from overseas must self-isolate for 14 days in their hotel rooms. Melbourne’s quarantine hotels have been identified as a major source of the virus escalation.