On Thursday, Sydney also announced 286 new cases.
During Thursday’s episode of The Project, Lisa Wilkinson took a moment to apologise to Victorians.
She blamed the spread on mixed messaging from the government.
“I must say, this afternoon when the news broke, that you guys are going into lockdown from 8 pm tonight, you know, there are a lot of us in Sydney who feel like we need to apologise to you guys because all this comes from what happened six weeks or so ago with that Bondi cluster that happened.”
She went on to say: “And the problem was the messaging from the very beginning and, look, I don’t know – we have all become experts, but watching this unfold it feels like the problem sheets back to the original mixed messaging, where the lockdown was not hard enough and people wanted a hard lockdown. We wanted to know what the rules were, so we could follow them and get out of it quickly.
“Victoria proves every time that the minute you get an outbreak there, you stamp on it and you get back to normal life again it is a pity it is happening for you guys for the sixth time now.”
Premier Daniel Andrews said that ideally he would prefer to wait a few more days before calling a lockdown, however health officials are calling for quick reactions.
“The alternative is we let this get away from us and our hospitals will be absolutely overwhelmed — not hundreds of patients but thousands,” he said.
Victoria’s acting chief health officer Professor Ben Cowie said stay at home restrictions would be reintroduced.
From 8 pm on Thursday, only five reasons to leave home will be allowed in Melbourne and Greater Victoria:
• Obtaining the food and supplies you need
• Exercising for up to two hours
• For care or caregiving
• Authorised work or education
• To get vaccinated at the nearest possible location.
Victorians also must wear face masks indoors and outdoors.
Mr Andrews has revealed virus fragments have been found in wastewater throughout the state.
“We have a sewage test that has detected Covid-19 in the northeast, Wangaratta sewage test has pinged, firstly positive, then it went negative, now it’s gone positive again,” he said.
“We have some reason to believe there is Covid-19 in that community or has been in that community.”
