Australia’s second-most populous state Victoria has entered a five-day lockdown as authorities raced to prevent a third wave of Covid-19 cases sparked by the highly infectious UK variant, Reuters reported.

One new locally acquired case was confirmed in the past 24 hours, health authorities said, taking the number of cases tied to a quarantine hotel at Melbourne airport to 14 and total active cases in the state to 20.

“A lot of people will be hurting today. This is not the position Victorians wanted to be in but I can’t have a situation where in two weeks’ time, we look back and wish we had taken these decisions now,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters.