Premier Daniel Andrews has dashed the hopes of millions of locked-down Melburnians of big steps next week out of the stage four COVID-19 restrictions the city has endured since early August.
The Premier said on Saturday that the steps to be announced next weekend will not be as far-reaching as hoped, with health authorities still battling with the "stubborn tail" of Victoria’s second wave of coronavirus infections, reporting 14 new cases of the deadly virus for Saturday.
Premier Daniel Andrews on Saturday broke the hearts of Melburnians hoping to have key restrictions lifted on October 19.Credit:Justin McManus
Mr Andrews said a partial easing of the lockdown would be announced as planned on Sunday, October 19, but that the case numbers meant the significant opening up of the city and its economy at that point would run too great a risk of triggering a third wave.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said too many people were still delaying testing after the onset of COVID symptoms, a trend that he blamed in part for the failure to get case numbers to their target level of under five per day on average.
Neither Professor Sutton nor the Premier would be drawn on which restrictions might be relaxed next Sunday.
The politics of the pandemic continued to play out on Saturday, with the state opposition trying to pressure the inquiry into the quarantine hotels debacle to ask for Mr Andrews’ phone records and those of his senior staff.
In what was Mr Andrews’ 100th media briefing in a row, the Premier said the daily case numbers had not come down quickly enough to allow large opening-up steps for metropolitan Melbourne next Sunday.
“The tail of this second wave was always going to be stubborn and that’s exactly the way it is panning out,” The Premier said.
“I think it unlikely that we will be able to move as fast as we would like to have done next Sunday, I think it’s unlikely that we will be able to take as big steps as we might have hoped to take.
“But I do want to confirm for all Melburnians, indeed all Victorians, we will take steps next Sunday.”
Mr Andrews tried to temper the disappointment of Saturday’s news for the millions of people who have been anxiously looking forward to next Sunday’s announcement after 11 weeks of hard lockdown.
“It is in no way warranted for people to be despondent or in any way to lose hope,” the Premier said.
“This strategy is working.”
Professor Sutton said the disappointing daily case numbers were caused in part by people who began to show COVID symptoms but were slow to get tested.
“A couple of weeks ago, we saw people who were too slow to test from the beginning of symptoms and were too slow to isolate,” the Chief Health Officer said.
“They're the things that are contributing now to the cases we are seeing and we need to turn that around.”
Victorian Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien sought to turn up the pressure on Mr Andrews on two fronts on Saturday, pushing for Victoria to open up to the same levels of restrictions currently in force in NSW and for the inquiry to call for the Premier’s phone records.
“Victorian are feeling very nervous, some are feeling a bit depressed about the daily numbers,” Mr O’Brien said.
“As long as contact tracing is up to speed, as the Premier tells us it is, there's no reason why we can’t safely reopen the same as NSW has done.
“A lot of independent experts, public health experts, epidemiologists say we can open up safer and sooner.”
After a difficult day for the government on Friday, when former health minister Jenny Mikakos cast doubt on the Premier’s evidence to the hotel quarantine inquiry, Mr O’Brien called on the inquiry to seek the phone records of Mr Andrews, and some of his senior staff, in a bid to establish who decided to hire private security guards for the program.
“The Premier needs to be asked to hand over phone records, text records and the phone and text records of his senior staff and his senior public servants,” Mr O’Brien said.
“The truth is out there and it’s the hotel quarantine inquiry’s job to find it.”
Earlier in the day, the new Health Minister Martin Foley confirmed that young Victorians were bearing the brunt of the mental health effects of the pandemic with hospital presentations among the under-17 age up by more than 30 per cent on the same period last year.
Across all age groups there had been a 5.7 per cent increase in potential self-harm and “suicide ideation” presentations in emergency departments, the minister said, a lower rate than earlier in the second wave.
Noel Towell is State Political Editor for The Age
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMieWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWFnZS5jb20uYXUvbmF0aW9uYWwvdmljdG9yaWEvc21hbGwtc3RlcHMtYW5kcmV3cy1icmVha3MtbWVsYm91cm5lLXMtbG9ja2VkLWRvd24taGVhcnQtMjAyMDEwMTAtcDU2M3Z2Lmh0bWzSAXlodHRwczovL2FtcC50aGVhZ2UuY29tLmF1L25hdGlvbmFsL3ZpY3RvcmlhL3NtYWxsLXN0ZXBzLWFuZHJld3MtYnJlYWtzLW1lbGJvdXJuZS1zLWxvY2tlZC1kb3duLWhlYXJ0LTIwMjAxMDEwLXA1NjN2di5odG1s?oc=5
2020-10-10 07:46:00Z
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