A coronavirus curfew was announced Monday in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, with residents confined to their homes overnight as authorities work to stamp out a Delta variant outbreak.
More than 5-million residents in the city will not be able to leave their homes between 9:00pm and 5:00am from Monday evening, with essential workers requiring permits to be on the streets.
Victoria state premier Dan Andrews said the decision came after a series of street parties, pub crawls and home gatherings over the weekend, as Melbourne reached a “tipping point” in its latest outbreak.
“We’ve seen lots of different people flouting these rules, not doing as they should, making really poor choices,” he said.
Andrews also announced that stay-at-hone restrictions would be extended to September 2, saying it was necessary for the city to avoid the fate of Sydney “where it has fundamentally got away from them”.
Australia has recorded more than 39,000 cases of Covid-19 and 966 deaths to date in a population of 25 million.
