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Daniel Pockett / Getty Images
People enjoy the weather at St Kilda Beach on November 27 in Melbourne, Australia.
The state at the center of Australia’s worst coronavirus outbreak has gone 28 days with no new cases of the virus, an enviable record as many countries grapple with mounting infections or renewed closures.
One of the strictest and longest stay-at-home orders in the world allowed Victoria to crush community transmission after a daily peak of about 700 cases in early August.
Daniel Pockett / Getty Images
Victoria has not registered new cases of coronavirus for the 28th consecutive day, meeting the official definition of elimination.
Success means Australia will be among a handful of Western nations that can look forward to Christmas with limited restrictions on family gatherings and what authorities call a normal Covid summer.
The 28-day race is “an extraordinary achievement both psychologically and practically in terms of opening up the economy,” said Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious disease physician and associate professor of medicine at the Australian National University in Canberra. But there is no room for complacency, he warned, and Australia faces an ongoing risk of the virus entering the community from returning foreign travelers, despite a mandatory hotel quarantine system.
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“The reality is that no matter how careful people are, there can always be an accidental breach or a breach where you can’t even identify the source,” Senanayake said.
More than 30,000 Australians, many of whom live in Europe and the United States, where the virus is rampant, are waiting to return home.
Failed security at quarantined hotels in Victoria, which allegedly included guards sleeping with guests, saw the virus escape into the community, leading to a three-month shutdown in Melbourne.
Meanwhile, in neighboring South Australia, authorities are investigating how two security guards, a cleaner and two returning travelers contracted the virus while in hotel quarantine, sowing a cluster of infections in the state that has increased. to at least 31.
While 28 days without mystery Covid-19 cases is the working definition for eliminating community transmission, the Victorian government remains cautious.
“This is a tremendously infectious virus, you should always assume there is more to it than you think,” Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said earlier this week.
