REGIONAL Victorians will enjoy a further easing of COVID-19 restrictions at midnight on Tuesday, as limits to outdoor dining increase, along with a return to contactless outdoor recreation.
Victorian Premier Dan Andrews said on Sunday that Victoria would pass its first vaccination threshold of 80 per cent of first doses on Tuesday, allowing for restrictions to ease at 11.59pm.
In regional Victoria, hospitality venue capacity for outdoor settings will increase from 20 to 30 people. Masks may be removed in hair and beauty salons for services such as facials and beard trimmings.
Contactless recreation will also return, with golf, tennis and boating able to return in regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne.
Mr Andrews said on Sunday that Victorians could feel “very confident about reaching 80 per cent double dose on the timelines we have outlined”.
The next milestone in the roadmap will be the return of students to the classroom on October 5, followed by reaching 70 per cent vaccination for Victorians aged 16 and over on October 26.
Minister for Industry Support, Tourism and Sport Martin Pakula also announced on Sunday the Victorian Government would conduct “vaccinated economy” trials in 20 municipalities next month.
The trials are scheduled to start on October 11 and will run for two weeks in highly vaccinated areas of regional Victoria. The first areas invited to participate will be Buloke Shire and the Bass Coast, Greater Bendigo, Pyrenees, Warrnambool and East Gippsland municipalities.
The trials will take place in a variety of businesses, such as hospitality, hairdressing and beauty services, tourism businesses and events such as race meetings, community celebrations and concerts.
The focus of the trials will be to test the process for establishing vaccination status, with work under way to integrate Commonwealth vaccination data with the Service Victoria app.
On Sunday Mr Pakula said the Commonwealth was working to secure the Medicare system against people tampering with vaccination status information.
“The trial is partly about ensuring that we understand all of those different pressure points and all those different possibilities so that by the time we get to 70 per cent and 80 per cent we have a much better idea of what is secure and what is not,” Mr Pakula said.
Pending the outcome of the first series of trials, further trials using 80 per cent double dose settings will be held before Victoria hit its phase C milestone on November 5.
Buloke Shire reached the 82.1 per cent first-dose level on September 13, while East Gippsland hat 81.2 per cent of first doses on September 20. Buloke Shire last week lost a bet between mayor Daryl Warren and Queenscliffe Mayor Ross Ebbels over which local government area would be the first to reach 80 per cent first-dose level.
