Big fines for infected Australians breaking quarantine orders

MELBOURNE (HRNW) – Hundreds of coronavirus-infected people in Australia’s worst-hit state have been caught flouting stay-at-home orders, authorities said Tuesday, prompting tougher fines.

The southern state of Victoria has endured a second wave of infections over recent weeks that the government has partly blamed on people breaking rules that restrict travel.

Residents of Melbourne, Australia’s second biggest city and the capital of Victoria, are now enduring an overnight curfew, closure of non-essential businesses and mandatory mask-wearing as hundreds of new cases are recorded daily.

But 800 infected people — or more than 25 percent of those doorknocked aross Victoria — were not at home when authorities condcted recent checks, which state Premier Daniel Andrews called “completely unacceptable”.