Man claiming condition makes him resistant to COVID-19 fined by police
A man who claimed he has a condition making him "resistant to coronavirus" is among the latest Victorians to be fined for breaching COVID-19 restrictions.
He was caught buying cigarettes with a friend in South Melbourne after curfew on Thursday night. He was also not wearing a face mask and told police he didn’t need one because of a "birth condition that makes him resistant to coronavirus". Both men were fined.
Another man was fined for the tenth time for flouting lockdown rules after he was found more than 5 kilometres from his Whittlesea home, outside Melbourne, in the inner-city suburb of Richmond.
He told police he was in the city to visit work colleagues but could not produce appropriate documentation and was fined.
A man in the Brimbank area in Melbourne's north-west was also caught breaching the 8pm curfew. When he was asked why he was out, he told police he was looking for places to buy cheaper groceries in the area.
Meanwhile, eight people who do not live together were sprung at a one-bedroom apartment on Flinders Street in the CBD.
They were among 253 people fined over the past 24 hours. In total, police dished out 41 fines to people who were not wearing face masks and 75 for curfew breaches. Another 20 people were fined at vehicle checkpoints.
Police stopped 18,405 vehicles at checkpoints around the city and carried out 5007 spot checks at homes, businesses and public places.
Already this month one Melburnian was caught driving to Wodonga for a McDonald's Big Mac, while another travelled to Ballarat to get some "fresh air" in brazen breaches of lockdown restrictions.
Police Minister Lisa Neville has slammed the selfish actions of people ignoring the rules as "appalling".
"I am fed up with it, Victoria Police are fed up with it," she said earlier this month.
"It's ridiculous. It's unacceptable. And it is dangerous. That's why we've put in place extraordinary powers."
The state has introduced new, tougher penalties for people flouting lockdown quarantine rules, but it is not clear if anyone has been hit with the huge fines.
Anyone found breached self-isolation for a "second or subsequent time" will be fined $4957.
In the case of repeated breaches, such as a person going to work when they have the virus, people can be taken to the Magistrates Court, where the maximum penalty is $20,000.
The state is also deploying a further 250 police officers towards monitoring the lockdown.
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