Victoria was plunged into a seven-day state-wide lockdown on Thursday after Melbourne’s northern suburbs cluster grew to 26.

Sky News host James Morrow says if there was equity in Victoria then all the “lockdown happy” public servants under no threat would be “paying the price”. Victoria was plunged into a seven-day state-wide lockdown on Thursday after Melbourne’s northern suburbs cluster grew to 26. The cluster has since grown to over 40, while Victorian health authorities have expanded the list of exposure sites to 174. The family of an eight-year-old boy from Warrnambool who died on his first over-night camping trip were denied an exemption to the ten-person limit at funerals. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he was unaware of the “thinking around” the decision to deny the exemption for the funeral but said it was likely due to “equity reasons”. “I’m sure they are considering the equity issues for everyone who will have funerals in coming days and the equity issues around how you manage the risks in all those settings,” Professor Sutton said. Mr Morrow said real equity in Victoria would be if the public servants “without any skin in the game, without anyone ever being under threat” would suffer the same as the rest of the state. “They would be the ones who would be paying the price for these lockdowns, that would be equity,” he said.