Melbourne has been ‘smashed by COVID’ and lost its ‘spirit and trust’

Sky News host Chris Smith says the once great city of Melbourne has not only been smashed by coronavirus, but it’s lost its spirit and trust because of a “government which bungled the emergency” at every turn.

Premier Daniel Andrews has finally green-lit the opening of retail, restaurants, hotels and cafes from Wednesday after Melburnians spent weeks in lockdown while case numbers were extremely low.

Mass testing took place in a northern Melbourne cluster overnight returning more than 1500 negative COVID tests, which the premier used as a justification to halt announcing any changes on Sunday.

Cases have been in very low numbers for weeks, prompting calls from the business community for Mr Andrews to open much earlier.

Mr Smith said in reality Victorians should have been “unshackled” from midnight on Sunday as opposed to being “dragged into another week” with some restrictions expected to be lifted on November 8.

“Another two week lag,” he said.

“This is why the delay in lifting restrictions in Melbourne, is infuriating the majority of Victorians”.

Victorians were initially told by the premier that if the rolling 14-day average overnight infections dropped below five then hospitality and retail would reopen.

The rolling 14-day average did drop below five on Sunday, but the premier did not loosen restrictions based on the cluster in Northern Melbourne.

“The premier broke his promise,” Mr Smith said.

“The once great city of Melbourne has not just been smashed by a virus, its lost its spirit and trust, because of a Government which bungled the emergency at every turn.”

Видео Melbourne has been ‘smashed by COVID’ and lost its ‘spirit and trust’ канала Sky News Australia