Victoria’s fight against COVID-19 is getting a little more intense. The state recorded 363 fresh COVID-19 cases and three more deaths on Sunday which followed Friday’s 428 and Saturday’s 217 cases. This has pushed authorities to make wearing face masks outside homes compulsory.
36 of the new cases are linked to known outbreaks and 327 cases are under investigation for their origins.
In Australia, there have been 11802 cases of which 5696 COVID-19 cases have been recorded in Victoria. Currently there are 2837 active cases across the state, with 130 people being treated in hospital. Of those 28 are in ICUs.
Australia’s national toll stands at 122 which include 3 more deaths – that of two men and a woman who died of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.
Face masks will become compulsory in the coming days. It will be mandatory for people to cover their face or wear masks when leaving homes for the four legal reasons in metropolitan Melbourne and in the Mitchell Shire from 11.59pm on Wednesday.
“If you are out of your home for one of the four reasons, then you need to be wearing a mask and I stress – or a face covering – it need not be a hospital grade mask, it need not be one of the handmade masks … it can be a scarf, it can be a homemade mask,” Mr Andrews said.
“Any face covering is better than no face-covering.”
“We are going to be wearing masks in Victoria, and potentailly in other parts of the country for a very long time. There’s no vaccine to this wildly infectious virus.
It is a simple thing but it’s about changing habits,” Mr Andrews said.
“Most of us wouldn’t leave home without our keys, we wouldn’t leave home without our mobile phone, you won’t be able to leave your home without the mask and then where it is absolutely essentially to stop the spread of this virus.”
Anyone caught not wearing a face mask or covering can be fined $200.
Three million face masks are on order by the state government and the first batch of 300,000 is due to arrive this week.
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