Overview
If you live in Victoria and you're craving a doughnut right about now, there's a very good reason for those hunger pangs. Just weeks after Melbourne's latest COVID-19 cluster — the one that saw the city go into lockdown for a fortnight — the entire state has recorded zero new locally acquired cases for a whole seven days.
Yes, it's been a week of doughnut days for Victorians, all while outbreaks have been popping up in much of the rest of the country — including in Sydney, which is currently in lockdown, and in Brisbane, which spent four days in lockdown last week. Twelve months or so ago, if you uttered that term, you were probably using it in the literal sense between mouthfuls. Thanks to the chaos of the past year, however, the phrase now refers to this welcome COVID-19 milestone.
As reported today, Wednesday, July 7, the past 24-hour reporting period actually saw doughnuts on three fronts — with no locally acquired cases, no cases from interstate and none from overseas, either. Those numbers cover up until midnight last night, which is when Victoria's reporting cuts off each day.
At the time of writing, Victoria does still have 24 active cases; however, so soon after lockdown, notching up an entire week without any local spread is definitely excellent news.
Of course, this doesn't mean the war is over in the state, or around Australia, especially while the country's vaccination campaign is rolling out so slowly. Just yesterday, Melbourne's Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix was cancelled for 2021 — after also being scrapped in 2020 — because the pandemic isn't done impacting our daily lives just yet.
For more information about COVID-19 in Victoria, head over to the Department of Health website.