Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews shock call to end lockdown in country

Community leaders were resigned to lockdown lasting until Thursday, but in a Monday morning stunner the state government announced the latest shutdown would be ending in regional areas at midnight.

This morning school students will be back to face-to-face learning and cafes, restaurants and pubs can re-open and community sport is back on this weekend, but without crowds.

But border bubble changes announced before the latest lockdown and designed to further limit movement across the border will remain for the foreseeable future.

Wangaratta mayor Dean Rees, who called out the wrong wastewater COVID readings used to justify regional Victoria being included in the lockdown again, was shocked by Mr Andrews' call.

"I thought country areas might have come out Thursday, but to come out Monday morning and have kids back at school, businesses re-opening, is a great feeling," he said.

"It's been a team effort, we've all argued, fought and put our stories forward

"Let's make sure we keep things COVID free and continue our freedom."

Business Wodonga chief executive Graham Jenkin was equally surprised at the early release.

"It's like winning a game of footy by a point," he said.

"It's not a percentage booster, but at least you've got the four points.

"It's great considering where we've been since Friday.

"We still can't have people at our homes, but we can go to shops, go out for a meal and support all those businesses that are doing it really hard."

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North-East MP Tania Maxwell said regional lockdowns had to end.

"Places without cases should stay out of lockdown," she said.

"We can do this with a traffic-light system, the same used by Victoria to define levels of COVID risk in other states' local government areas.

"It's got to be a better way."

Mr Andrews renewed his call for a ring of steel around Sydney.

"I've got a border to defend between Victoria and NSW," he said.

"There's 50-60 active cases versus 5000, I think, in NSW, that's where a ring of steel should be put on."

Regional Victorians can travel to Melbourne for a permitted reason, and metropolitan restrictions must be followed once in the city.

Victorian Liberal leader Michael O'Brien called for a revision of the border bubble changes announced last week.

"We've always said rules about stopping people from regional NSW coming to Melbourne for holidays, shopping trips actually sounds sensible," he said.

"But within the border bubble themselves the rules don't make sense as they currently apply.

"Somebody can travel from Albury to Wodonga for legitimate work, they can be next to someone from Wodonga all day,.

"But if they want to go out and have a coffee, beer after work, or glass of wine, they can't.

"That doesn't make any sense so what we are seeing is the effect of these rules within border communities being massive.

"These are communities separated by a river the same way suburbs in Melbourne are separated by a road."

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