Australia State’s 50% jump in COVID-19 blamed on sports fans | Health Info

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By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) The Australian state of Victoria on Thursday reported a jump of more than 50% in daily COVID-19 cases, which authorities attribute largely to Australian rules football parties last weekend which violated pandemic regulations.

The state capital, Melbourne, traditionally hosts the annual grand finale that the football-obsessed city celebrates with a long weekend.

Due to the Melbourne lockdown, two teams from Melbourne played for the post of national prime minister in the west coast city of Perth on Saturday without coronavirus.

Contact tracers found that a third of Victoria’s 1,438 new infections reported on Thursday broke pandemic rules by attending social gatherings on the Friday public holiday and game day, officials said.

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Jeroen Weimar, Victoria’s COVID-19 response commander, said time will tell if the infection jump was a big rogue day or part of a serious new trend.

Today, this highlights the consequence of hundreds of people abandoning their guards, for very understandable reasons and are all fed up, Weimar said, referring to the Melbourne lockdown.

But that’s a direct result of hundreds of decisions made on Friday and Saturday last week and the question now is how we handle this going forward, he added.

Melbourne’s lockdown is expected to end on October 26, when 70% of the state’s population aged 16 and over is expected to be fully immunized. Residents are increasingly frustrated with the city’s sixth lockdown during the pandemic.

Australia’s second most populous city will overtake Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires next week as the city that has endured the longest lockdown in the world, the Melbournes Herald-Sun newspaper reported. Stay-at-home orders in Buenos Aires lasted 245 days.

The infection rate in Victoria has overtaken neighboring New South Wales, where the spread in Sydney has stabilized with rapidly increasing vaccination coverage.

New South Wales reported 941 infections on Thursday and six deaths. The vaccination rate has also accelerated, with 63% of its target population fully vaccinated according to government data, since the Australian delta variant outbreak was first detected in Sydney on June 16.

Only 49% of Victoria’s target population have been fully immunized, in part because the state has delayed second doses to make more vaccine available for first doses.

Victoria on Thursday reported five deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24-hour period. The state reported 950 new infections and seven deaths on Wednesday, both of which were daily records.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said his government remains committed to ending lockdowns in Australia despite the worsening situation in Melbourne.

Frydenberg, a resident of Melbourne, said the city has become depressed due to the closures, the latest having started on August 5.

Melbourne has tragically and sadly gone from being the most livable city in the world to the most locked up city in the world, he said, referring to a clue from the Economist Intelligence Unit which ranked the city at the top of its habitability table for seven consecutive years. until 2017.

The government said its payments to workers who lost hours due to lockdowns would end two weeks after 80% of a state or territory’s target population has been fully immunized.

Frydenberg said those payments cost his government A $ 1.5 billion ($ 1.1 billion) per week.

State and territory leaders agreed in July that closures would no longer be necessary once the 80% immunization threshold was reached.

But with the delta variant stretching hospital resources in Sydney and Melbourne, some executives have suggested they could maintain border restrictions until 90% of their populations are fully immunized.

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