Regional Victoria will emerge from a seven-day lockdown as planned after three new local cases were reported yesterday.
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Victoria's eased restrictions come into effect at midnight tonight, and they include retail and hospitality reopening with density limits and school going back to face-to-face learning.
The change was confirmed by Acting Premier James Merlino and Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng in their daily update.
Mr Merlino said he "wasn't too worried" about Melburnians potentially heading to regional Victoria and said a "ring of steel" would not be implemented.
"I think the settings that we have in place - whether it's the 10km limit that will apply for people living in Melbourne, additional patrols of Victoria Police (or) the requirements on regional businesses to ensure that patrons coming into their shops are either living in regional Victoria or have a reason to be in regional Victoria," he said.
"I can come back to you in terms of the exact number from VicPol (of extra police patrolling), but we're talking about significant increase in number of police patrols.
"From VicPol's point of view, and we agree ... this is a more effective way to deal with it rather than have a ring of steel, which is very resource-intensive and quite limited in terms of the locations where you can have police based statically."
Mr Merlino said requiring businesses to check patrons' addresses was a "common sense" suite of initiatives.
"It's a very simple thing to say to a patron, 'Have you checked in?' ... and very simple for businesses to say, 'Show us your drivers licence to show us you are living in regional Victoria'," he said.
"I'm really pleased to be here standing here this morning confirming the easing of restrictions for regional Victoria and I want to be back here next week talking about careful easing of restrictions in Melbourne and further easing of restrictions in regional Victoria."
There were 527 doses administered at the hub yesterday and it will open on Saturday between 8.30am and 2.30pm for those priority care workers.
Whilst the Hub is not accepting walk-in appointments from the general public this week, we are accepting walk-in bookings for future appointments.
IN OTHER NEWS:
There have been no new cases reported in NSW after alerts were issued due to a Victorian who travelled into the state and later tested positive.
There are exposure sites listed in Gundagai.
NSW Health has stated "Nobody from Victoria should be travelling to NSW without permission, except for those travelling within the defined border region."
In Victoria yesterday, there were 23,921 vaccine doses administered and 57,519 test results were received.
Dr Cheng said all three new cases were all primary close contacts of known cases.
"We're pleased with the strong testing response in Bendigo after a wastewater detection .... and we will be continuing to test known primary close contacts to make sure they haven't turned into cases," he said.
"Eighty-five per cent of (all tests) were turned around within 24 hours."
The restrictions flagged in the Acting Premier's statement yesterday were as follows, with Melburnians staying with the current restrictions (with an expanded radius) and regional Victoria having eased restrictions:
- Lifting the travel restrictions and the 'five reasons'.
- All year levels and all students will return to face-to-face schooling.
- Public gatherings - catching up at a public place like the park or the beach - will be increased to ten people. Visitors to the home are still not okay. And we still need masks to be worn inside.
- Restaurants and cafés can reopen to a maximum of 50. Retail, beauty and personal care, entertainment venues and community facilities will also open in line with density limits.
- Religious ceremonies and funerals will be capped at 50, weddings at ten.
- We'll also move to work or study from home if you can. Offices will be capped at 50 per cent.
- Regional Victorians will be able to travel in regional Victoria. Melburnians will not.
- Most businesses that are open in regional Victoria but closed in Melbourne - restaurants or beauty for example - must check the IDs of everyone they serve.
- We'll also expand our QR requirements to make it mandatory in retail settings like supermarkets and shops. The 15-minute threshold will also be removed so anyone entering a shop or a cafe will need to check-in.
