Victorians have been sent into a five-day hard lockdown.
Melbourne will be locked down from 11.59pm on Friday night, with stage four restrictions reintroduced until 11.59pm Wednesday.
Face coverings will once again be mandatory outdoors as well as indoors.
Stay-at-home orders will be reintroduced, with only five legal reasons to leave the house.
A 5km limit on travel will also be enforced.
Schools and universities will close, and both private and public gatherings banned.
The Premier said the lockdown was needed to prevent a third wave.
“Because this is so infectious and is moving so fast, we need a circuit breaker,” Daniel Andrews said.
The announcement comes after a cabinet meeting this morning where Premier Dan Andrews was presented with plans for the lockdown.
Five new cases emerged as part of the cluster on Thursday, including the husbands of two food and beverage attendants who worked at the Melbourne Airport hotel.
In an 11pm tweet, the Department of Health confirmed the latest two cases were “household primary close contacts” of existing cases.
It marked the first cases of transmission outside the quarantine system.
Early on Friday morning a new location – Brunetti in Terminal 4 of Melbourne Airport – was added to the Tier 1 exposure sites (see below).
Anyone who visited Brunetti over an 8.5 hour period from 4.45am to 1.15pm on February 9 must immediately isolate, get a test, and quarantine for 14 days.
AFLW TICKET SALES PAUSED AMID UNCERTAINTYTicket sales for this weekend’s AFLW games have been put on pause amid uncertainty surrounding the recent coronavirus outbreak.
Three games are set to be played in Melbourne across the weekend, with tickets due to go on sale at 10am Friday.
A further two games are scheduled to be played in other states, while a third interstate game between the Brisbane Lions and the West Coast Eagles had already been postponed due to border uncertainties.
The AFL made the announcement at 9.30am.
“Ticket sales for Round 3 of the NAB AFL Women’s Competition have momentarily been put on hold,” a statement from the AFL Women’s Twitter account said.
“Keep your eyes on our social media channels for further updates.”
Tickets for Friday night’s match in Geelong – which went on sale on Thursday – appear to still be available on the Ticketmaster website.
SHOPPERS STOCK UP AHEAD OF ANTICIPATED LOCKDOWNShoppers at Canterbury Gardens in Melbourne’s outer east were seen stocking up on supplies of toilet paper on Friday.
While there was none of the panic buying associated with the start of previous lockdowns, the majority of shoppers at Woolworths in Bayswater North had at least two bulk packs of toilet paper in their trolleys.
A pyramid of toilet paper which had been stacked at the front of one of the aisles was proving a popular destination for shoppers.
PM URGES VIC TO TAKE A PROPORTIONATE RESPONSEPrime Minister Scott Morrison said snap lockdowns had proven to be sensible in other states to give contact tracers a “head start”.
He confirmed Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly and Health Minister Greg Hunt had been working with Victorian authorities on options overnight.
The Prime Minister told 3AW that he would not preempt the state government’s decisions, but said that he expected Victorians would learn more today.
Mr Morrison said he expected that with a proportionate and targeted response, the state government should be able to get on top of the outbreak and avoid a repeat of last year’s lengthy lockdown.
Victoria’s testing commander, Jeroen Weimar, said it was still “early days” in the outbreak.
“This is by no means over, we are still in the opening quarter of the Holiday Inn outbreak I’m afraid,” he said.
the Holiday Inn hotel has been cleaned.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do to really make sure we pull this one up.
“What is more challenging with this one is it’s the UK variant so we don’t yet know how easily it transmits when you get into the second and third generation of people catching it. That’s going to be the challenge for us now and over the coming days.”
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, speaking on morning television in Sydney, said screening measures had been put in place at Sydney Airport checking if any passengers had been at the Holiday Inn.
“We’re nowhere near (closing borders),” Ms Berejiklian said.
“It’s not a situation that can’t be managed.”
— to thewest.com.au
