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The border between Victoria and New South Wales, dividing Australia’s two most populous, prosperous and popular states, will close indefinitely from tomorrow after Victoria recorded its biggest single-day blowout in Covid-19 coronavirus cases since the pandemic struck Australia.

The NSW/Victoria border is the busiest in Australia.

In a shock announcement yesterday, Victoria disclosed that 127 new Covid-19 infections had developed over the previous night and a man had died of the disease. Today, Tuesday, the situation was even worse, with 191 new infections recorded in Victoria.

The effect on tourism of the border closure will be major and immediate. Victoria is now entirely sealed off, a decision the Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) said was “disappointing but necessary”.

The NSW Government declared yesterday the closure would take force from 12.01am Wednesday, 8 July 2020. Midnight tonight, in other words.

Simultaneously, all Victorians travelling on flights to the ACT will be denied entry to Canberra. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the move would coincide with the closure of the NSW and Victorian borders. The border between Victoria and South Australia is already closed.

Any thought of “travel bubbles” – the sort that might allow travel between Australia and New Zealand or other destinations – is firmly on hold while Australia tries to control a festering eruption of Covid-19 in its own back yard.

In a matter of days, Australia has gone from having seemingly almost defeated the dreaded coronavirus to battling a disturbing blowout, confined to one state and apparently the result of a number of alarming blunders in Victoria.

A permit system will be imposed for people who need to travel from Victoria into NSW.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews declared the closure yesterday, with the NSW Government and Australia’s Federal Government making the same announcement. Andrews said his state had recorded a further 127 new coronavirus cases overnight. A man in his 90s had died of the disease in a Victorian hospital.

“AFTA will continue to work collaboratively with government at a federal, state and territory level to constructively navigate these incredibly confronting times,” AFTA chief executive Darren Rudd said.

“We acknowledge that the primary focus of government and health authorities is protecting lives and containing the spread, whilst also re-booting the economy in a sensible way.”

The decision to close the border between Victoria and New South Wales marks the first time the border has been sealed in over 100 years. In a disturbing parallel, the last time NSW and Victorian authorities took this drastic measure was in 1919, during the Spanish flu pandemic that ultimately killed 50 million people worldwide, including 13,000 Australians.

The Covid-19 coronavirus death toll in Australian currently stands at 105. The world’s officially reported death toll reached 537,048 yesterday, though the real toll is thought to be far higher.

In Australia, some states have almost eliminated the virus, along the lines of New Zealand. All eyes are now on Victoria. The number of Covid-19 cases in Melbourne, Victoria’s capital, has leapt in recent days, prompting authorities to enforce strict social-distancing orders in 30 suburbs and put nine public housing towers into complete lockdown.

The disclosure at the weekend that 10,000 Victorians had refused to be tested for Covid-19 when asked by health authorities sent shockwaves around the country.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison supports the concept of fining people who refuse a Covid-19 test, but says it is ultimately a matter for Victoria.

“The Commonwealth has no power over those things; that’s purely a state matter,” Morrison told Guardian Australia. “And they’ve got legislation down there which allows for that to be the case. So I mean that’s really a matter of Victorians.”

A leading Melbourne-based epidemiologist and public health medicine specialist has warned of a high risk of cross-contamination in hotels. Tony Blakely, Professorial Fellow In Epidemiology at the University of Melbourne, emphasised in a discussion with Radio New Zealand that “military-like precision” is needed to prevent outbreaks. That sort of precision is exactly what Melbourne has lacked.

In a wider move, Sydney International Airport at the weekend introduced a cap of just 450 passengers each day. Traffic at the country’s busiest international airport has now been choked to a trickle, just 1% of pre-pandemic levels.

The cap also limits individual flights to a maximum of 50 people, until adjusted.

Meanwhile, Air New Zealand has put a freeze on new bookings as it works with the New Zealand Government to safely manage a surge of Kiwis returning to their Covid-free homeland from various overseas hotspots. Authorities are struggling to place arriving New Zealanders in managed isolation or quarantine facilities for two weeks after arrival.

Written by Peter Needham