Coronavirus restrictions could be eased further in regional Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews says - ABC News

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has flagged the further easing of coronavirus restrictions in regional areas even if case numbers remain high in Melbourne, but says any changes would be minor.

Key points:

• Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says minor changes could be made to coronavirus restrictions in regional Victoria
• Country Victoria's ability to move to the next restriction level is tied to case numbers in Melbourne
• The Victorian Government is boosting testing to help keep regional case numbers low

There are four active cases in country Victoria including two new cases announced today, one in Mitchell Shire, the other in Mildura. Regional Victoria moved to step three in the Government's reopening road map on September 16.

But to move to the final step, the whole state needs to go two weeks without recording a new case.

Melbourne is due to join regional Victoria at the third stage of the plan on October 18 if it can meet the threshold of an average of fewer than five cases and no mystery cases in the preceding fortnight.

But Mr Andrews said if Melbourne's case numbers remained high, further changes could be announced for regional areas in the coming weeks.

"If Melbourne is more stubborn than we had thought, we will give 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," Mr Andrews said.

"But that's not for today and it's not even for next week. That will be something that's under constant review on the data, and the doctors and the science will drive us in all that."

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Government urged to ease restrictions

The hospitality and the health and fitness industries have criticised the Government for failing to ease restrictions in regional areas sooner.

Under stage three restrictions, hospitality venues are limited to 20 indoor patrons and 50 outdoors, and gyms and indoor sporting businesses cannot open.

Opposition economic development spokeswoman Louise Staley said there was a clear rationale for regional Victoria to move to the last step in the reopening plan.

"There's also a social rationale," she said.

"A lot of these final changes are to do with things that make up the social fabric of our lives — funerals … weddings, and it's time to allow regional Victorians to do that.

"But it's broader than that. It's how people live their lives and there are a variety of social activities they cannot do now, yet can be done in a socially distant way."

Victoria is introducing workplace coronavirus testing.(ABC News: Jessica Hayes)

Increase in testing

The Government is also increasing the amount of coronavirus testing in regional Victoria in a bid to make sure all cases are tracked down.

That will involve targeted workplace testing in the meat, fish and poultry processing industries and supermarket distribution centres of asymptomatic workers.

Department of Health and Human Services deputy secretary Jeroen Wiemar said about 200 workers at Hazeldene's Chicken Farm in Bendigo would be given saliva tests as part of a trial.

"We're excited about the opportunities for saliva trial testing, particularly for surveillance," Mr Wiemar said.

He said the non-intrusive nature of saliva testing offered benefits for monitoring infection levels, even if it was not as accurate as nose and throat testing.

In addition, 14 of the 37 wastewater testing sites were located in regional Victoria.

"Six of those sites were newly activated in the past week or so in Benalla, Wangaratta, Wodonga, Swan Hill and a couple of sites in Mildura," Mr Wiemar said.

Move welcomed

The Government's decision to introduce targeted workplace testing has won the support of infectious disease expert Associate Professor Daniel O'Brien who heads up contact tracing at Barwon Health.

Dr O'Brien said the testing would be crucial to preventing further coronavirus outbreaks in regional Victoria.

"We've worked out there are certain areas and primarily workplaces that are responsible for a significant amount of the outbreaks, so it's now using the benefit of experience to minimise the risk of any outbreaks," he said.

"So for instance, a workforce in an abattoir — they will be tested, the whole workforce, over a four-week period, with 25 per cent of the workforce being tested every week.

"So it's really a surveillance mechanism, so we have early warning if there is anything going on."

He said visibility of the virus was an important part of controlling outbreaks and would help health authorities maintain control of the virus.

Masks to stay

The compulsory use of masks will remain in place for some time.(ABC Wimmera: Sean Wales)

The Premier said the compulsory use of masks would remain a part of daily life in regional areas despite the drop in cases because of their protection against "super spreader" events.

"If we can refine that a little bit then, of course, we're always open to doing that," Mr Andrews said.

"But I've been clear with people that personally I'm going to hold out on this, I think that [masks are] serving a very useful purpose."

But he acknowledged there was some frustration and fatigue with the ongoing restrictions.

"You can't just pretend it's over because you want it to be," Mr Andrews said.

"That's where the virus wins, it sits there smouldering, and then we let our guard down, we'll let our frustration get the better of us and it will run wildly."

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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTEwLTA4L2Z1cnRoZXItZWFzaW5nLXJlc3RyaWN0aW9ucy1wb3NzaWJsZS1pbi1yZWdpb25hbC12aWN0b3JpYS8xMjc0MzI4NtIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjc0MzI4Ng?oc=5

2020-10-08 05:57:00Z
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