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State leaders are now set to widen restrictons with more than six million people told to wear a mask when outside from Sunday, extending a requirement already in place in the capital Melbourne. Australia’s coronavirus death toll now stands at to 189, more than half of which have occurred in Victoria and its capital Melbourne.

We’ve got to be careful not to slip into some idea that there’s some golden immunity that Australia has

Scott Morrison

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: “We’ve now been in this lockdown in Melbourne for some weeks and we are not getting the results we would hope for, and as a result the further measures that are taken are certainly necessary.

“On some days the virus wins, on other days we beat it. But I think we’ve got to be careful not to slip into some idea that there’s some golden immunity that Australia has in relation to this virus.”

Mr Morrison said further restrictions on movement would deal a blow to the economy which is already in its first recession for 30 years, but failure to control the latest outbreaks would do more economic harm in the long run.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the latest spike in cases was concerning but the majority were at known hotspots such as care homes and the number of untraceable infections was “much smaller”.

Doctors in Victoria have called for a tighter Stage Four “New Zealand-style” lockdown across the state to tackle the new outbreak.

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8.28am update Rochdale faces fresh coronavirus lockdown

Coronavirus continues to spread across the UK, with another town facing tougher new lockdown restrictions amid fears of a second wave of the killer disease.

Local officials in Rochdale will meet tomorrow to decide whether current measures, already stricter than the rest of England, will be tightened as coronavirus cases continue to surge in the Greater Manchester town.

Rochdale Borough Council will discuss extending current restrictions in the town, where residents are urged to maintain two-metre social distancing rules, in comparison to one-metre, as figures suggest COVID-19 cases remain nearly as high as in Spain.

8.06am update: Global coronavirus cases pass 17 million mark

More than 17.05 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 666,411 have died, according to a the latest data.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

7.30am update: Hancock issues warning of second wave

Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that a “second wave” of coronavirus is “starting to roll across Europe”.

He told Sky News: “I am worried about a second wave. I think you can see a second wave starting to roll across Europe and we’ve got to do everything we can to prevent it from reaching these shores and to tackle it.

“The measures that the chief medical officer will set out later are part of that but so too are the measures we’re taking, for instance to ensure that we don’t directly bring cases back to this country where there’s a big spike in cases.

“So absolutely on a second wave it is something I worry about and I worry about it because we can see it happening.”

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