Northern Territory declares ALL of Victoria a coronavirus hotspot and shuts borders to the state until further notice
- The whole of Victoria was declared a coronavirus hotspot by the NT government
- From July 17, the NT will relax border restrictions for most other Australians
- Mandatory 14 days quarantine to stay in place for Victorian travelers indefinitely
The Northern Territory has declared Victoria a COVID-19 hotspot and has shut its borders to the southern state.
The NT’s Chief Minister Michael Gunner announced the measure on Wednesday morning saying it would last indefinitely.
Victorians who try to cross the border into the NT will be thrown into mandatory quarantine at their own expense for 14 days.
NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles said the measures could be in place for a year.
The Northern Territory (pictured is Kakadu National Park) has declared its borders will be shut to Victorians until further notice
The Territory government responded to the spike in Victoria by announcing on Sunday that arrivals from designated COVID-19 hot spots in the state would require forced quarantine.
That was expanded on Monday to all of Melbourne and then Tuesday to the entire state of Victoria.
Melbourne has been ordered back into lockdown for six weeks after Victoria was hit with a record 191 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, following an increase of 127 cases on Monday, which was also a record.
Visitors to the NT from interstate currently must go into unsupervised self-quarantine.
The NT borders were due to reopen on July 17 but Victorian will be required to go into supervised quarantine for 14 days at their own cost and be tested for COVID-19.
NT Police have been increasingly issuing fines to people for breaching quarantine, with 121 penalties so far.
Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance NT chief executive John Paterson had previously called for the borders to be shut to all of Victoria immediately, rather than Melbourne from July 17, citing concerns over indigenous communities.
The NSW border will be closed to Victoria from Wednesday.
NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles said the situation was ‘rapidly evolving’ which meant there was still plenty of time to make changes in the next 10 days if there were outbreaks in new areas.
The government made its decisions based on medical advice while recognising the restrictions had caused an economic crisis and could be in place long-term, she said.
‘This could be in place for many months, it could be in place for up to a year,’ she told reporters.
‘In terms of people potentially planning travel, they should be aware that these their local government areas could be defined as a hot spot and therefore (would be) going into forced quarantine if they are planning any travel interstate post-July 17.
‘This will allow some travel between Australian jurisdictions, we know that coronavirus has had a huge impact and people haven’t been able to visit loved ones who may be seriously ill and had impacts on people attending funerals.
‘We need to make sure the measures we put in place stand us into the future … we need to be practical, we’re going to be living with this for some time to come until a vaccine is rolled out.’
Last week a man in his 30s became the first positive case in Darwin in almost three months, after travelling from Pakistan to Melbourne where he completed quarantine but then stayed with relatives in one of the city’s infection hot spots.