CANBERRA, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pledged extra vaccines and defence force support for Victoria state which was put under a coronavirus lockdown.
The country's second-most populous state will enter a snap seven-day lockdown from midnight Thursday after authorities identified 10,000 primary and secondary contacts linked to a COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
Responding to the lockdown announcement, Morrison praised the "tremendous job" of contact tracers and promised "every support" available for the state including 130,000 additional vaccine doses.
"The next seven days in Victoria will be very challenging, and of course we are very mindful of the distress and the difficulty that this will impose upon people right across Victoria," he said.
Announcing the restrictions on Thursday, when 12 new local cases were reported, Acting Victorian Premier James Merlino said the lockdown may have been avoided if the national vaccine program was effectively rolled out and specialized quarantine facilities were established for returned international travellers.
Anthony Albanese, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said Victoria "never should have been put in this situation" because the federal government should have fixed quarantine many months ago.
According to Albanese, it was the 17th COVID-19 outbreak linked to hotel quarantine. Enditem