The ‘three-day’ window that will determine whether a lockdown is needed

One of Victoria’s most prominent epidemiologists says we’ll know by Friday whether another lockdown in Melbourne is needed to curb the coronavirus.

Professor Tony Blakely told Neil Mitchell the next 72 hours were critical.

There are now five active cases of COVID-19 in the community, which saw the Victorian government tighten restrictions on Tuesday.

Professor Blakely said he expected more cases to emerge.

“I think we’ve got a 72-hour window here to find out how many cases pop up,” he said.

“If it doesn’t look too concerning, we can work our way through this just with contact tracing and testing.”

But if mystery cases start emerging, then it’s a concern.

“(If that happens) then we need to start thinking about reaching into the tool kit and using some of these tougher restrictions or Stage 3 or Stage 4,” Professor Blakely said.

“I’m not advocating for that at the moment, far from it, but I will say that between now and when we open up next year somewhere in Australia there will be a couple of instances where we need to reach into that tool kit and do lockdowns.

“We are now looking at an Indian variant that is probably twice as infectious as the first coronavirus.

“It will get away from us somewhere, sometime, over the next 12 months.”

Press PLAY below to hear the professor’s insight