The move was announced Monday afternoon and will take effect from 23.59 local time on Tuesday. It was a decision taken jointly by Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and federal prime minister Scott Morrison.
In the last few days Melbourne has seen a dangerous flare up of coronavirus cases. On Monday, Victoria announced 127 new confirmed cases and one new coronavirus death. The army has been drafted in to help Victoria ramp up to daily testing of 20,000. Residents of 36 hotspot suburbs of Melbourne were last week put into a local lockdown, though they can leave home for work, exercise, care and grocery shopping. Over the weekend, a hard lockdown was announced at nine tower block residences containing roughly 3,000 people. The tower dwellers have been told not to leave their homes for any reason.
Though air travel between Sydney and Melbourne had dwindled, the internal border between the two most populous states had remained open throughout the coronavirus outbreak. This is the first time the border has closed in roughly a century.The film and TV industries are certain to be affected by the lockdown. The border closure comes at a time when the entertainment had begun to turn a corner.
“The problem is that share personnel a lot. Most productions will have 1 or 2 key cast from the other state. Maybe some lean ones won’t, but probably 90% will,” leading producer
Hopefully some emerging Australian filmmakers can create something innovative with a lack of resources.
austrailia has a border.