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HEALTH-VIRUS-AUSTRALIA-NZEALAND
Lightning lockdowns curb virus in Melbourne, Auckland
MELBOURNE, Feb 17, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Major cities in Australia and New
Zealand lifted stay-at-home orders for millions of residents Wednesday after
successfully using snap lockdowns to quash outbreaks of virulent strains of
Covid-19.
Authorities said swift action in Melbourne and Auckland helped contain
flare-ups of the highly contagious UK coronavirus variant, contrasting with
the less rigorous approach taken in Europe and other infection hotspots.
Announcing the end of a five-day shutdown in Melbourne, Victoria Premier
Daniel Andrews hailed the tactic as a “short, sharp circuit-breaker”.
“If we had been open throughout this outbreak… total case numbers would
be much, much higher and it is a certainty that I would not be reporting zero
cases today,” he said.
Andrews’s decision allows around six million residents to leave their
homes, businesses to reopen and some spectators to return for the final days
of the Australian Open tennis tournament.
In New Zealand, almost two million Aucklanders will enjoy similar freedoms
after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a three-day lockdown had quelled the
city’s most serious outbreak in almost six months.
“We wanted to make sure we took a cautious approach because that’s much,
much better than getting it wrong and having a large-scale outbreak and a
long lockdown,” she said.
Auckland is also hosting a major sporting event — the America’s Cup
yachting regatta — which is expected to resume this week with crowds
watching from the shoreline restricted to 100.
Both the Auckland and Melbourne outbreaks involved the more transmissible
virus strain first detected in Britain.
Andrews has conceded such “hyper-infectious” variants are difficult to
contain and examined tightening quarantine restrictions in Australia’s second
most populous state.
While Australia has largely contained the virus, Victoria state’s Melbourne
remains the country’s worst affected city, enduring more than 100 days of
lockdown late last year to curb an outbreak that killed about 800.
Andrews said aggressive lockdowns may be needed again to keep the virus at
bay.
“I can’t stand here and be honest with people and say this will never, ever
happen again,” he said.
Ardern said New Zealand’s Covid-19 response — which involves rigorous
contact tracing and widespread testing when there is a community case — had
again proved effective.
The New Zealand leader has been widely praised for her handling of the
pandemic, with just 26 deaths in a population of five million.
But Ardern also signalled a willingness to use more lightning lockdowns if
required, saying there was no room for complacency against the “tricky”
threat posed by the virus.
“There is an indescribable anxiety that comes with the daily grind of
managing a pandemic and I think we all feel it,” she said.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1310 hrs