CANBERRA – Approximately 2 million Australians began on Monday the first full day of a strict coronavirus closure following the discovery of a case in the community of Perth, the capital of the state of Western Australia, but since then no new cases have been found.
Authorities ordered a five-day closure in Perth after it was found that a hotel security guard who was making forty people returning from overseas had contracted the virus.
The state government said 66 people have been considered close contacts of the unidentified guard and that none of the people who already did the test were infected.
“A total of 13 close contacts have been negative and of those 11 high-risk contacts have been moved to hotel quarantine as an additional precaution,” the Eastern Prime Minister told Perth journalists. Western Australia, Mark McGowan.
Tests for the rest of the close contacts were expected to end on Monday, McGowan said.
Australia has managed to contain its new coronavirus epidemic to a large extent, limiting cases to almost 29,000 and deaths to 909, with the kind of decisive action seen in Perth and strict border controls.
A vaccination campaign should begin this month, which Prime Minister Scott Morrison said would cost at least $ 4.8 billion.
Australia had already pledged to spend $ 3.355 billion to acquire enough doses for its population of 26 million, but Morrison said his government had set aside another A $ 1.9 billion to pay for the deployment.
“The strategy is backed by an initial allocation of about $ 1.45 billion in new support for vaccine deployment. This exceeds the more than $ 4.4 billion earmarked for the purchase of vaccines,” Morrison said in a speech in Canberra.
Classifying the inoculation program as his “first priority,” Morrison said the economy should now begin to shrink from government spending.
Australia has pledged more than $ 190 billion in incentives, which have already begun to shrink.
But Morrison said there was a limit to the support the government could afford.
“We don’t run a blank check budget,” Morrison said.