Hundreds of shell-shocked Australians arrived in Sydney on the last flights out of Melbourne just hours before the New South Wales-Victoria border closed indefinitely for the first time in a century.
Qantas and Jetstar flights QF490 and JQ530 were the final two from Melbourne allowed to land in the Harbour City, arriving at about 10pm on Tuesday before the state border slammed shut two hours later.
Victoria recorded 191 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday – the biggest daily increase since the outbreak began, plunging 5.2million people in greater Melbourne back into lockdown for six weeks effective from 11.59pm on Wednesday.
Victoria Waghorn, a filmmaker from regional NSW, flew into Melbourne on Monday for a business meeting when she learned the city was heading back into lockdown.
Tasmanians Zoe Storm and Finn Colley , both 21, are unsure when they will be able to return home as Melbourne is placed into a six-week lockdown
Passengers on the last flights out of Melbourne wait eagerly to collect their baggage after undergoing health checks from authorities
A group of travellers wearing face masks arriving from Melbourne rush to the baggage reclaim hall to collect their luggage
She quickly purchased a ticket back to Sydney, watching as the price flights rapidly climbed towards $500 as demand peaked.
‘It was like flying out of an apocalypse,’ Ms Waghorn told Daily Mail Australia at Sydney Airport on Tuesday night.
‘Everyone was trying to book a flight but some people couldn’t because the rules changed last minute. They had checked in and everything but were told they could no longer get on the plane.
‘I’m so relieved to have made the flight.’
Ms Waghorn will be forced to endure 14 days of home self-isolation, as was required of last-minute arrivals from Melbourne before the lockdown kicked in.
Relieved to be back: Victoria Waghorn (pictured) said it was like ‘flying out of an apocalypse’ as people scrambled to get a last-minute flight out of Melbourne
Health authorities scanned travellers foreheads to check their temperatures as they arrived in the airport on Tuesday night
A couple of women wearing face masks and blue gloves wait to collect their bags from the luggage carousel
While Ms Waghorn wasn’t fazed by the two weeks of solitude ahead, Matt Riley, 42, was disappointed to learn of the quarantine rule at the last minute.
‘I didn’t know until I was on the flight,’ he said.
‘I’m a little bit annoyed about it. I’m head of IT for a construction company, my employer is good, so it’s alright but I am supposed to go to Brisbane for work in couple of weeks.’
Passengers were marched off the aircraft two rows at a time to be met by Australian Federal Police and health officials who conducted temperature checks.
Passengers collect their luggage after arriving on the last flight from Melbourne at Sydney Airport on Tuesday night
A mother uses her mobile phone to video her son after he arrives in Sydney and has his temperature checked by health officials
The baggage carousel was brimming with luggage as hundreds of Australians escaped from Melbourne before stage three lockdown began on Wednesday
Arrivals required to quarantine were handed a wad of paper work detailing the latest health directives.
However, Mr Riley said he was given mixed instructions.
‘It was still really unclear. She said we “strongly recommend” you undergo 14 days of isolation,’ he said.
‘So I’m confused. Do I or don’t I?’
One man, who wished to remain anonymous, was furious with the isolation rule.
Qantas and Jetstar flights QF490 and JQ530 were the final two from Melbourne allowed to land in the Harbour City on Tuesday
Police officers gather outside Sydney’s domestic terminal before being transported to various parts of the New South Wales border with Victoria on Tuesday
A man wearing a face mask and clasping a COVID-19 safety booklet looks at his phone as he heads towards baggage claim area
‘They don’t tell you,’ he said.
‘I live in a non-hotspot, it said on the website I wouldn’t have to go into isolation.’
While he praised the efficiency of the COVID-19 safety officials, he was appalled by the prompt decisions made by ‘out of touch’ politicians.
‘These guys are so far behind it’s painful,’ he said.
Sally Wilson, 67, who lives between Melbourne and Sydney, flew into NSW to be with her son when the lockdown was announced.
Officers from the NSW Police force and Australian Federal Police were waiting for passengers inside the terminal as they exited the aircrafts
Despite packed flights, passengers trickled slowly into the baggage area as health officials conducted methodical health checks as people exited the plane
The whole of Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire north of the city will be placed back into lock down for six weeks from 11.59pm on Wednesday after Victoria recorded 191 new cases of coronavirus – its worst figure yet. Pictured: A map showing the suburbs in lockdown
Qantas flight QF490 (pictured) was the second last plane to arrive from Melbourne before the VIC and NSW border closed indefinitely from 12.01 Wednesday
Although she came from Clifton Hill, she was told must isolate at home as she was too close to postcode 3064, one of Melbourne’s 12 coronavirus hotspots.
‘You’ve just got to do it,’ she said.
A doctor, who did not want to share his name, said the health procedures he had witnessed at airports amid the pandemic had been wholly inadequate.
He said Tuesday night was the first time his temperature was checked despite making four return trips from Melbourne to Brisbane in recent months.
Police stop cars and question drivers in Albury in the lead up to the border closing on Wednesday morning
Passengers of a Melbourne to Sydney flight arrive at the Harbour City’s domestic terminal wearing face masks on Tuesday
A passenger off a Melbourne to Sydney flight collects their luggage at Sydney domestic airport on Tuesday
The hard border closures came in at 11.59pm on Tuesday. A passenger is seen at Sydney Airport after returning from Melbourne on Tuesday night
Despite the overcrowded planes, the airport remained eerily silent, as it has been since the pandemic took hold, as passengers slowly trickled out of the health checks into the baggage collection area.
The border shut-down comes as:
- New South Wales recorded seven new virus cases, including a Newcastle man released from quarantine
- Queensland reported its first case in more than two weeks, a returned solider in hotel quarantine
- The federal government agreed to cap numbers flying into Western Australia at 525 a week
- WA, the ACT and the NT recorded zero new cases
- SA increased border measures to ban Victorians by removing the two-week quarantine option
Nearly a dozen NSW Police officers are pictured speaking to drivers crossing from Victoria into New South Wales as the border was closed from 11.59pm on Tuesday
Preparing for duty: Police Officers congregate outside Sydney Domestic Terminal before being transported to various parts of the NSW border where they will stop Victorians entering the state
Four of Victoria’s new cases related to an outbreak among emergency department staff at Northern Hospital Epping, which now totals eight staff and one household contact.
The emergency department remains open with a temporary reduction in non-urgent elective surgery and outpatient appointments.
A new case has also been confirmed in a staff member at the Assisi aged care facility in Rosanna, in Melbourne’s northeast.
Pictured: New South Wales Police officers speak to drivers crossing the border between NSW and Victoria on Tuesday. Police will be deploying number-plate recognition software to trace where drivers have come from
Five police officers questioned a male driver attempting to cross the checkpoint shortly after the measure came into effect
The staff member did not work while infectious and widespread testing of staff and residents at the facility will begin on Tuesday.
Staff undertaking contact tracing in north Melbourne are finding that some patients are reluctant to share their close contacts, according to the Herald-Sun.
The newspaper reports that in some cases residents have been told by officials they are a close contact as long as five days after they met a confirmed patient.
Lockdown could impact Victoria hotel program
The future of Victoria’s troubled hotel quarantine program is in question amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and the looming lockdown for metropolitan Melbourne.
It means Victoria still may not be able to accept any more returned travellers after the temporary diversion of international flights to other states ends next week.
Premier Daniel Andrews said he’s focused on tackling the surge of coronavirus cases in the community and enforcing a return to stage three restrictions.
‘Our focus is, appropriately, on dealing with extra cases, on dealing with outbreaks, and doing everything we can to enforce these lockdowns and make sure they work,’ he said.
This graph shows how community transmission has soared in Victoria as a second wave of COVID-19 grips the state
‘We may not be in a position to resume (taking returned travellers) at the end of this two-week pause.’
International flights into Victoria were diverted for two weeks on June 30 and a judicial inquiry was announced into the state’s hotel quarantine system following widespread claims of infection control breaches.
The premier on Tuesday stressed no decision had been made about whether Victoria would keep accepting international flights and he needed to speak to Prime Minister Scott Morrison about it.
Meanwhile, residents of the nine locked-down towers said they feel let down by a lack of communication, food and supplies. Some have complained they have had to go hungry because officials have not brought them enough to eat.
The Melbourne Public Tenants Association, on behalf of the residents in the Flemington and North Melbourne estates, say residents have been left in the dark since the state government’s hard lockdown was enforced on Saturday.
In a letter to the federal Acting Chief Medical Officer, Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services, Premier Andrews and Victoria Police, the association describes how residents were forced to wait 24 hours for food and other essentials like baby formula, nappies and medication.
Delivery: The Melbourne Public Tenants Association, on behalf of the 3000 residents in the Flemington and North Melbourne estates, say residents have been left in the dark over enforced hard lockdown. Pictured: Firemen deliver bread
Workers carrying boxes of protection supplies help keen key workers safe outside locked-down tower blocks in north Melbourne. Premier Daniel Andrews said the new lockdown was essential to avoid ‘thousands and thousands’ of cases and ‘many, many people in hospital.’
When the food arrived it was ‘at best, questionable pre-packaged meat-like food items that do not look suitable for human consumption’.
‘Furthermore, the delivery of the food was tossed to the floor on a single piece of paper in front of the residents’ apartment doors in small portions of one food item per household,’ the letter said.
One carpet-cleaner described the conditions as ‘worse than prison’ because residents are not allowed outside.
New lockdown: Victoria has recorded 191 new cases of coronavirus – its worst figure yet. Pictured: Police and nurses wearing protective equipment outside tower blocks in north Melbourne
Locked down: A resident of a housing commission block in north Melbourne presses against the window as police patrol outside
As Victoria battles a snowballing outbreak, NSW reported seven new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday from 9,746 tests, including a man who tested negative in hotel quarantine before returning home to Newcastle on Sunday and developing respiratory symptoms. He and his close contacts have been placed into isolation.
The other six cases were in travellers in hotel quarantine. Two probable coronavirus cases are being investigated in the Albury area after returning positive results on preliminary testing in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District.
Health officials said the two cases were undergoing further testing but had not yet been included in the state’s confirmed case load.
Under presser: Premier Daniel Andrews announced a fresh lock down for Melbourne today. Residents were only allowed out of their homes for five weeks before being told to stay inside once more
One suspected case had recently been to Melbourne but returned before hotspot travel restrictions came into force.
NSW Health is setting up a pop-up clinic in Albury from Tuesday and is urging residents in the area with even mild symptoms to get tested.
Queensland recorded its first case of the virus in two weeks on Tuesday, a soldier who returned from overseas and tested positive in hotel quarantine.
South Australia recorded zero new cases and announced that it was ramping up border measures to completely ban Victorians by removing the option for them to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival from midnight tomorrow.
Since last Monday Victoria has detected 823 new infections, only 14 of whom are returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.
This is radically different from the spike in cases across several states in late March and early April which saw large numbers of returning Australians test positive.
Locally-acquired cases are more dangerous because the patients are not in quarantine and can more easily transmit the virus around the community.
Paul Komesaroff, Professor of Medicine at Monash University, told Daily Mail Australia the situation in Victoria, where 12 postcodes have been put back into lockdown, is alarming.
‘It is an extremely dangerous situation and the safety of the entire country is at stake,’ he said.
‘Clearly there is a major problem that has required draconian measures which should be supported by Victorians to protect their safety.
Professor Komesaroff said he supported the border shut downs and localised lockdown measures which have proved successful in other countries such as South Korea and Singapore.
Helpers arrive with food in shopping trollies which will be distributed by firefighters throughout a public housing tower in North Melbourne
‘This a very different situation that we haven’t seen previously and we have to do what he have to do,’ he said.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the situation was ‘very different’ to the previous spike earlier this year.
‘The vast majority of cases that New South Wales and other states were experiencing were from overseas travellers or the direct contacts,’ she said.
‘All of the cases that the Premier Andrews announced today are from community transmission.
‘This is unprecedented in Australia. That is why the decision of the New South Wales Government [to shut the border] is unprecedented. We have not seen anything like this.’
There are 55 NSW-Victoria border crossings over more than 1,000 kilometres and they will be manned by police and soldiers with drones and road blocks when the border is shut from 12.01am tonight.
Anyone entering NSW from Victoria without a permit will be fined $11,000 and could face six months in jail.