SYDNEY/MELBOURNE - Emel Evcin first heard on a phone call with a friend that nearby Covid-19 cases had rendered her Melbourne apartment block quarantined, yet on checking through the curtains, she saw not medical staff but law enforcement.
Melbourne is the capital of Victoria state, which on Tuesday reported its highest number of new infections at 191. At the Melbourne towers, access roads were taped up and playgrounds and sporting ovals closed, while dozens of police stood guard and helped distribute hampers and food packages delivered by charities, according to a Reuters witness.Amina Yussuf, an Australian citizen of Somali background living with her seven children in one of the towers said she was shocked and felt traumatised when police prevented her from leaving the building to shop for food for the week on Saturday .
Such a sudden and concentrated lockdown, seen first in Chinese epicentre Wuhan, is unprecedented in Australia which prides itself on its civil liberties. It has sparked public outcry that the harshest measures have been applied to some of the city's poorest residents.The government previously said it could not give ample notice of the lockdown because of the urgency of the matter, comparing the tower blocks to"vertical cruise ships".