Australia's Covid success under threat as Melbourne goes into lockdown

Police patrol Melbourne's usually busy Bourke Street Mall as the city's residents returned to a seven day lockdown to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Five million weary Melbourne residents were put back under lockdown on Friday, straining local resolve and testing Australia's ‘zero-Covid’ strategy of smothering outbreaks however small. As authorities said a cluster of positive cases had grown to 39, streets in Australia's second city emptied out for the fourth time since the pandemic began. ‘It's just very difficult,’ resident Gavin Catt told AFP. ‘This lockdown is affecting us. Many families and friends can't work.’ Melbournians have been ordered to stay at home for seven days to stall transmission and buy the authorities time to investigate how the virus again jumped from hotel quarantine into the community.