Friday, 12 Feb 2021 11:10 AM MYT
Fans relax at Melbourne Park. It was announced the tournament will proceed without crowds over the next five days after the state of Victoria was placed under a snap lockdown from Friday to contain a fresh outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Melbourne February 12, 2021. — Reuters pic
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SYDNEY, Feb 12 — Australia’s second-most populous city will enter a five-day snap coronavirus lockdown, authorities said on Friday, barring spectators for much of the Australian Open tennis tournament.
A fresh Covid-19 cluster linked to a quarantine hotel in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria state, reached 13 cases as of Thursday midnight, as authorities rushed to quash the spread of the virus. All of those infections were linked to the highly contagious UK variant.