THE Victorian Government says it will give “detailed consideration” to further easing of COVID-19 restrictions in regional Victoria even if Melbourne’s recovery does not catch up with the rest of the state.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews initially forecast that both regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne would move to the last step before COVID normal together when there have been no new cases in the community for more than 14 days.
However, while regional Victorian moved to the Third Step on September 16, Melbourne has yet to achieve the trigger point to progress from the Second Step of fewer than five new cases a day over a 14 day average with less than five cases with an unknown source.
Mr Andrews yesterday told regional media, including Sunraysia Daily, that should Melbourne’s recovery from the coronavirus continue to lag behind regional Victoria, the initial scenario could be modified.
“We had originally forecast to try to keep Melbourne and regional Victoria as closely aligned as possible because that then means you can get rid of that border and you can have more freedom of movement,” Mr Andrews said.
“But just like the original decision for the Third Step in regional Victoria, we didn’t put a date on that because we knew it would come relatively quickly, therefore we didn’t have to subdivide regional Victoria into lots of different zones,” he said.
“If Melbourne is more stubborn than we had thought we will give a very detailed consideration to regional Victoria, perhaps taking some further small steps so that we can continue to have activity and jobs and that sense of recovery in regional Victoria.
“But that’s not for today, that’s not even for next week, that will be something that’s under constant review and the data and the doctors and science will drive us in all that.”
Mr Andrews said that while additional steps in regional areas was not definitive, “as soon as we can map out what any potential future stages look like and timing around that we absolutely will”.
“If Melbourne’s tail of the second wave is more stubborn than we had thought, then we certainly don’t rule out — in fact we are actively looking at — whether there might be other options for regional Victoria to push further ahead of Melbourne,” he said.
“The fact that you are out of sync isn’t great, but the extra economic activity in regional Victoria justifies that.
“We are in that difficult zone where there’s lots of thinking going in to what happens in a couple of weeks’ time, but we just can’t give people answers to those very legitimate questions.
“We want to see all the data that will come in over the next fortnight just to be sure about where regional Victoria is up to and, indeed, where Melbourne is up to.”
Mr Andrews said calls to further open regional Victoria were “perfectly understandable”, but Melbourne residents urging freedom of movement in and out of regional Victoria was “simply not safe”.
The next step of Melbourne’s roadmap is expected to happen on October 19 and the Premier said he would have more to say about regional Victoria’s restrictions around that time.
“It may well be that we need to see what the results in Melbourne are of any move we make here before we can be definitive about what the last step — which is essentially COVID normal — looks like for regional Victoria,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Andrews left the door only slightly ajar to potential changes to the compulsory wearing of masks in regional Victoria despite the low case numbers.
“As the weather gets warmer … I know it will be challenging,” he said.
“As soon as masks are no longer proportionate or no longer serving a purpose, once the risk is lower, then we won’t hesitate to make that change and we may look at some refinements between now and then.”
However, Mr Andrews said face masks were serving “a very useful purpose” and he was personally “a hold out” to changing those measures.
