Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, who personally ordered the abhorrent prison-like lockdown on thousands of the state’s most vulnerable people this past weekend, has gotten extremely snippy in a lengthy press conference this morning, threatening more widespread lockdowns across the state if residents refuse to do the right thing.
While hundreds of thousands of people are currently back under lockdown after Stage 3 conditions were imposed across 12 postcodes, Premier Andrews was at pains to stress this morning that the threat for those outside the hot zones has not passed.
A very chippy Andrews fielded questions from press a short time ago, asserting quite bluntly that if all Victorians don’t do their part, then widespread lockdowns are inevitable.
“I know it’s difficult. I know people are sick and tired and fatigued of this global pandemic, the rules, the restrictions, I get that. I understand that. But this is where we’re at – there is no vaccine. It’s wildly infectious,” Andrews stated.
After delivering stats on what is now Victoria’s worst coronavirus pandemic day so far, with 127 new cases confirmed over the past 24 hours, Premier Andrews mince no words in asserting the lockdowns will only continue unless the entire city of Melbourne pulls its head in.
“If people pretend it’s over, all they’ll be doing is spreading the virus. And then we will finish up with even more rules that will be even less palatable. We have all got to stay the course. We all have to do that. And it isn’t too much to ask that people just use common sense and good judgement,” a clearly frustrated Andrews barked.
“It is real, it is serious, it’s not over and I just ask all Victorians – I can’t do this on my own, a team of thousands of Victorians can’t do it on their own. I need each of you to do the right thing. Otherwise, everyone is going to be back in their home in a lockdown. That’s what’s going to happen. This could not be more serious. Could not be more serious. I’m not telling people what to do, I’m asking – work with me and my team and we will get this back under control and we will be able to resume our easing, our opening up. The alternative is people pretend it’s over and it will be anything but over if some of this behaviour continues.”
Andrews also asserted that further lockdowns, applied across all of Victoria, will be an inevitability if residents continue to pretend the pandemic is over.
“All of us have got a part to play in getting control of this virus, stabilising it, driving down case numbers, containing it and then getting back to a point where we can – we can resume our program of opening up. That will be further away if people don’t do the right thing. That will be further away still if people say, ‘Well, I want this to be over so I’m going to pretend that it is.’ It isn’t. There’s a long way to run in this,” he said.
“This is serious, this is real, and no Victorian has any excuse but to take this seriously. Otherwise, we will finish up in a situation where all post codes are locked down.”
Andrews has presided over a harsh and disproportionate crackdown on 9 public housing towers across Melbourne, which has seen residents virtually locked inside their homes under tight police guard for the past 36 hours. More affluent areas of Victoria, notably Toorak and Portsea, received not even a fraction of the same treatment back in March, despite accounting for well over 100 of Victoria’s known COVID-19 cases at the time.
