REGIONAL Victoria will come out of lockdown tonight, the Premier has announced.
From 11.59pm Monday, the five reasons to leave home will be lifted and there will be no restrictions on the distance and reasons for travel. However, regional Victorians can only visit Melbourne for permitted reasons, including accessing healthcare, doing authorised work, or transit, and must follow Melbourne’s restrictions while there. Melbourne residents cannot leave the city.
The easing means schools, retail, personal services and hospitality in regional Victoria can return with density caps in some settings, while sport can return without crowds.
Visitors to the home are still banned, but people can gather in public in groups of up to 10. Masks are still required indoors and outdoors.
Businesses that are open in regional Victora but closed in Melbourne, like restaurants or beauty salons, must check the IDs of everyone they serve.
The easing comes as Victoria recorded 11 locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Monday, only one of whom was in isolation while infectious. The results came from 38,987 tests processed on Sunday.
Mildura now has just one active case, with four of Sunraysia’s five recent cases now recovered.
But with no new cases popping up in the regions, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he was comfortable to let country Victorians out of lockdown early.
“It is my judgment that regional has gotten to that point where we can ease restrictions,” he said.
“There are no exposure sites in regional Victoria, no cases, just a few primary close contacts.”
Premier Daniel Andrews said it was “very positive news” that regional Victorians could return to pre-lockdown restrictions.
“Today’s a good day for regional Victoria, and in many respects a positive day for the whole state,” he said.
“We’ve always said the moment it’s safe to lift restrictions we will.”
However, Mr Andrews ruled out reintroducing a ring of steel around Melbourne, despite the difference in restriction levels between the capital and the rest of the state, once again calling instead on the NSW government to fence in Sydney.
“I’ve got a border to defend between Victoria and NSW and I am not going to shut half the police stations in Melbourne to defend something that public health experts and police say we do not have to do,” he said.
Both Mr Andrews and Professor Sutton, as well as COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar, were adamant vaccination was the best way to safeguard regional Victorians’ newfound freedom, as state-run AstraZeneca clinics open up to 18-39-year-olds from today.
“The best vaccine to get is the one that’s available to you today,” Prof Sutton said yesterday.
“I’m a 52-year-old bloke, if I were 25 and AstraZeneca was the only vaccine available to me today, I would get it.”
“We are putting again some more Pfizer vaccine into the system, as fast as we get them from the commonwealth,” Mr Weimar added this morning.
“Please come forward and make those appointments and let’s get this vaccination job done.”
