MELBOURNE — More than five million people in Australia’s second-biggest city of Melbourne were ordered into a snap week-long lockdown Thursday, as officials blamed a sluggish vaccine rollout and hotel quarantine failures for another virus outbreak.
Stay-at-home orders will apply to Melbourne and surrounding Victoria state from midnight for seven days, acting state Premier James Merlino told residents, as the cluster doubled to 26 cases.
“In the last day, we’ve seen more evidence we’re dealing with a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern, which is running faster than we have ever recorded,” Merlino said.
The variant detected is known as B1617 — which …
Keep on reading: Millions in Melbourne ordered into snap COVID-19 lockdown