Australia has initiated new containment for a reb …

This Thursday Australia launched new emergency lockdown in Melbourne, its second most populous city with over 5 million inhabitants, and the rest of the state of Victoria, to contain a epidemic of the Indian variant of the coronavirus.

James Merlino, Acting Prime Minister of Victoria, reported that the quarantine will last at least seven days after the local covid cases will double to 26 overnight.

“Over the last day we have seen more evidence that we are facing a highly infectious variant of the virus, a disturbing variant that is progressing faster than what we have detected,” Merlino said of the Indian variant of the virus. coronavirus.

The objective of the new containment is to locate the origin of the new cases. Measurement allows people to leave their homes only for activities considered essential like going to the drugstore, buying food or getting the vaccine against the virus, Merlino added.

This is the fourth time Melbourne has been locked out since the start of the pandemic, spending four months under severe restriction measures last year.

In recent months, Australia had few containment measures as it successfully contained the spread of the coronavirus, but critics point out that the slowness in vaccine application has exposed the population to further outbreaks.

Australia, with 25 million inhabitants, accumulates some 30,000 cases of covid-19 and at least 1,000 deaths, mainly in the state of Victoria.