Back by (un)popular demand, Melbourne stage 3 restrictions and project COVID skies are back. This time around there will not be as many photos. In my own best interests, I need to also spend time working on other aspects of my photography.

On the 9th of June 2020, the state of Victoria had an increase of zero cases of COVID-19. Fast forward a few weeks and the numbers were starting to get out of hand.

Monday 29th June the state of Victoria had an increase of 71 cases of COVID-19. This has been followed by daily increases of 60, 72, 72, 65, 101, 67, 124 and 164 on Tuesday 7th July. With this increase, came the announcement that Melbourne would be re-entering stage 3 restrictions. Already, days prior many post codes in the west and north of Melbourne had been placed into stage 3 restrictions. Along with those restrictions there were nine public housing towers that had been placed into a hard lock down where the residents were unable to leave their apartment for any reason.

Stage 3 restrictions commenced for all of greater Melbourne plus the Mitchell shire on 9th July. Just one month on from the last zero count for a day. Testing numbers have been very high around Melbourne with approximately 30,000 tests per day being conducted and our overall total has surpassed 1 million.

Very different to the first round of stage 3 restrictions, we are now dealing with community transmission. This makes the spread a lot easier and it is hard to contain where unknown cases are and effective tracing can’t be completed. We are also dealing with changed attitudes of some of the general public and a certain level of complacency.

There have been events that have lead towards this increase in numbers. Whilst not directly attributable, the black lives matter protests have been seen as a signal to the general populous that mixing is OK and the restrictions don’t need to be followed so rigorously. If 10,000 people can gather in a place then sure 30 at a family event is fine. There has been a number of clusters that have formed from large family gatherings including of religious significance. This is why certain areas of Melbourne have become hotspots for Corona virus. One factor which I think had most people flabbergasted was that security guards at the quarantine hotels had been fornicating with some of the returned travellers and had as such caught COVID-19 and then shared it with their families and the community. It was also revealed that many travellers were not tested prior to being let out of quarantine. Hopefully now these issues and any other potential for issues have been taken care of and a much more thorough approach initiated.

The numbers of new cases from the start of restrictions on the 9th July has been 156, 281, 181 and 239 further cases announced today.

9th July 2020 7:22 am Stage 3 restrictions are back for the greater Melbourne area.