(Recast with official confirmation)
SYDNEY, Feb. 12 (Reuters) – Australia’s second-most populous city will be shut down from the coronavirus five days soon, authorities said Friday, excluding spectators from the Australian Open tennis tournament.
A new COVID-19 cluster linked to a quarantine hotel in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria, reached 13 cases as of midnight Thursday as authorities rushed to stop the spread of the virus.
Victoria Prime Minister Daniel Andrews announced the state’s shutdown, calling it a “short, sharp circuit breaker” banning public gatherings, home auctions, weddings and religious gatherings.
“There will be no crowds” at sporting events around the state, Andrews said. The tournament will run until February 21. The crowd was already limited to 50% of the usual capacity for the Grand Slam event.
“We have to assume that there are more cases in the community than we have positive results for, and it is moving at a rate not seen anywhere in our country for the past 12 months,” Andrews told reporters.
Victoria endured one of the world’s toughest and longest lockdowns last year.
Ahead of the announcement, Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered his government’s full support for Victoria’s decisions to contain the outbreak.
“We’ve been handling (outbreaks) in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth for the past few weeks, and so a proportional response … allows tracers to come on top and get the same successful outcome we’ve seen in other states,” said Morrison to reporters.
(Reporting by Renju Jose and Swati Pandey; Written by Sam Holmes; edited by William Mallard)
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