Canberra, Oct 21 (UNI/Xinhua) Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison has paid tribute to Melburnians for enduring over 260 days of coronavirus lockdown.
In an opinion piece released by the PM's press office on Thursday, Morrison declared that "victory is in sight" in the "battle of our generation."
Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, is set to exit lockdown on Friday after reaching a full vaccination rate of 70 percent.
It will mark an end to 262 cumulative days in lockdown since the start of the pandemic for the city of 5 million and the first time since June that no Australian city will be under lockdown.
"With the state reaching the 70 percent double dose vaccination milestone, victory is in sight," Morrison wrote.
"I want to thank each and every Victorian for the incredible job you've done."
The end of lockdown comes as Australia reported more than 2,600 new locally-acquired COVID-19 cases on Thursday.
In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), 28 new cases were reported on Thursday. ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith ruled out a vaccine mandate for staff and detainees at Canberra's prison despite it being considered a high-risk setting.
On Wednesday the ACT government announced a vaccine mandate for disability support workers and in-home aged care workers, but Stephen-Smith said the Alexander Maconochie Center (AMC) was a "very different" case.
"Correctional services officers are not providing close personal care to detainees," she told reporters.
"And what we have seen in the AMC is a number of detainees being positive, a staff member who was positive at work, and those things were managed very closely and we haven't seen the spread of COVID-19 in the prison."
UNI/XINHUA GNK