Mark McGowan, the premier of Western Australia, said there are no new COVID-19 cases on Day Three of a five-day lockdown affecting some 2 million people, which he called after a single person contracted the novel coronavirus.
McGowan made the announcement during a Wednesday morning news conference, calling the news a “very encouraging result,” especially considering the state’s “testing at record” levels. He encouraged anyone who feels “unwell at all” to get a COVID-19 test.
“The more we test, the more confident we can be to get back to normal,” he said.
McGowan announced the lockdown for the city of Perth as well as the Peel and South West regions of the state after a security guard at a hotel for quarantined travelers tested positive for the virus.
As part of what McGowan deemed a “full lockdown,” residents in the zones listed are only allowed to leave their homes for medical reasons, essential shopping, exercise, and work that is not possible to be performed remotely. For five days, most businesses, schools, and churches are also forced to be shuttered under the mandate.
“This is a very serious situation, and each and every one of us has to do everything we personally can to help stop the spread in the community,” McGowan said on Sunday.
McGowan said on Wednesday that while the “full lockdown” will end after the five-day period if there are no new infections, he hinted to some restrictions that will remain in place for at least two weeks, noting that the virus “lingers,” although he didn’t outline specifics during the news conference.
He said that 189 close contacts of the security guard have been identified and 234 more casual contacts. McGowan said all of those who have been tested so far have returned negative results but that other test results are still pending.
At the hotel the man was guarding, the Sheraton Four Points, there were four active cases among those quarantined during his shift. One of the infected had the South African variant and two had the U.K. variant, both of which are thought to be more contagious than initial iterations of the virus.
“We are told the guard was working on the same floor as a positive U.K. variant case,” McGowan said, adding, “Exactly how the infection was acquired remains under investigation.”
Western Australia has a total population of some 2.8 million but has only tallied 902 coronavirus cases, more than 800 of which were international travelers. Australia in total has had only about 28,900 total infections, resulting in 909 deaths since the pandemic first began nearly a year ago.
