Hundreds of protesters have rallied in Melbourne’s CBD after Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews declared the state’s sixth coronavirus lockdown.
The protesters, some carrying placards and most not wearing masks, gathered at Flinders Street around 7pm Thursday and moved into Swanston Street as police in masks gathered to try to disperse them.
Flares were lit and the crowd chanted “no more lockdowns”, while residents of nearby apartments shouted “Go home idiots”.
Video on Twitter feeds showed police on foot and horseback fronting the crowd, and a line of officers shoulder to shoulder on the steps of Flinders Street Station.
One video showed two officers using handheld devices to spray protesters with what may have been pepper spray.
One protester shouted “COVID is fake” and another said he was angered by Victoria’s sixth lockdown.
At least one arrest was made.
The seven-day lockdown announced by Mr Andrews began at 8pm on Thursday after the state recorded eight new cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Mr Andrews said the decision to lock down was “incredibly painful”, but there was no alternative and he was determined to avoid an extended lockdown..
“The alternative is not to be locked down for seven days, it’s being locked down for seven weeks or more, locked down until we get to 80 per cent vaccination and that may not happen until Christmas time,” he said.
“We have been through a three-month lockdown. That was 2020, we don’t want that again.”
Meanwhile, people in Newcastle and the Hunter region have joined Greater Sydney in lockdown after NSW suffered its darkest day of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The one-week snap lockdown was called after five new cases turned up in Newcastle and eight more were found in the Central Coast region.
The state saw 262 new local cases reported on Wednesday, of which at least 72 were in the community while infectious.
Five people died in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday – three men in their 60s, a man in his 70s and a woman in her 80s. None were fully vaccinated.
It was the deadliest day of the pandemic, and recorded the highest daily number of cases.
Also in NSW, a 34-year-old woman died of a rare clotting syndrome caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Therapeutic Goods Administration reported on Thursday.
Six people have now died from the condition, out of about 6.8 million vaccine doses.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said vaccination was the way out of the crisis which had shut down Greater Sydney for almost six weeks.
She said restrictions would remain in some form until 80 per cent of people were vaccinated, and wanted 50 per cent jabbed by the end of the month.
Developers are warning they’ll need to put people out of work if restrictions remain in place past August.
The Urban Development Institute of Australia surveyed its members, with a quarter saying they’ll need to make large cuts to their workforces if restrictions go on any longer.
One third of housing construction sites in NSW are still closed, the institute says.
Developers are operating at half capacity on average for sites that are open, with many workers kept off-site by extra restrictions that apply to eight local government areas of concern.
Greater Sydney will be subject to stay-at-home orders until at least August 28.
The lockdown of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens, Singleton, Dungog, Muswellbrook and Cessnock is set to lift on August 13.
