Millions in Melbourne ordered into snap COVID-19 lockdown
Five million people in Melbourne were ordered into a snap week-long lockdown Thursday, with officials blaming Australia's sluggish vaccine rollout and hotel quarantine failures for yet another virus outbreak in the country's second-biggest city. Facing a cluster of 26 cases linked to the "highly infectious" Indian strain of Covid-19, authorities issued stay-at-home orders for Melbourne and surrounding Victoria state from midnight. It is the fourth time Melbourne has been plunged into lockdown since the pandemic began, including nearly four months of harsh restrictions last year. The cluster is believed to have begun with a traveller who returned to Australia from overseas despite a mandatory 14-day quarantine. The latest outbreak has intensified criticism of flawed quarantine facilities and a national vaccine rollout that, according to acting state Premier James Merlino, is "not where it should be". "If more people were vaccinated, we might be facing a very different set of circumstances than we are today. But sadly we are not," he said, pointing blame squarely at the conservative federal government. Some local residents rushed to get jabbed Thursday, as the state opened up mass...