Sports vouchers for school kids as Victoria records another 'doughnut' day - The Age

Vulnerable Victorian school children will receive $200 vouchers to help them get back onto netball courts, football fields and cricket nets as part of a $45.2 million investment in children's sport.

Deputy Premier and Education Minister James Merlino said the funding, which won't kick in until next year, would target "kids most at need" and help with the cost of sports equipment, uniforms and memberships.

After months of lockdown, the Victorian government is keen to help children to get active again.Credit:Melissa Adams

The first part of the funding includes $21 million of vouchers to help about 100,000 Victorian children get involved in organised sport. "This is about supporting kids getting back into their local clubs, supporting sporting clubs getting back on their feet and supporting parents with the cost of living," Mr Merlino said.

The remaining funding will be devoted to schools, and include almost $13 million of grants for 577 schools and partnerships with start-ups to explore how technology can help to get teens moving.

"It will go towards, again, the purchase of equipment, running sport and physical activity programs," he said. "This is a really significant announcement, encouraging community sport, encouraging kids to return to the sport that they love."

Mr Merlino said the eligibility criteria and details would be announced in coming months.

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he was confident that indoor sport would start by the end of the year, but cautioned that indoor spaces provided a much higher risk of transmission.

"It will progressively go from outdoors to indoors, from non-contact to full contact. Across the board for age groups from children to adults," he said. "I am confident that will happen this year and we are on the path to this."

Professor Sutton also urged Victorians to call out hospitality staff if they saw them failing to adhere to infection control measures.

"People should vote with their feet," he said. "If they are going to a hospitality setting and they are not comfortable with the distancing measures or the check in, the QR code... and all those details...

"If you see a waiter or waitress without a mask, demand it. People should go to places where they feel comfortable and safe. I would say to all those businesses, 'do the right thing'."

Victoria recorded zero new cases and zero deaths on Sunday, making it the second 'doughnut' day in a row, and the fourth in a week.

The metropolitan rolling average is sitting at 2.2, while the regional Victorian average is at zero.

Masks to remain the accessory of choice

Professor Sutton said while face masks would remain a part of the Victorian look for some time to come, the state would eventually transition from universal mask-wearing to just wearing masks in high-risk settings once authorities were confident community transmission was low enough.

"Clearly if there is no transmission at all, masks are not a requirement," Professor Sutton said.

"What we shouldn’t be complacent about is thinking that if we have a few days without cases that there is never a requirement for masks. Country Victoria went for weeks without a single case, but I am sure all the people of Shepperton were very happy they were wearing masks when there were three active cases in the community recently."

He said face masks were critical in protecting Victorians from undetected transmission.

"Clearly we should be transitioning, and we will be transitioning from universal mask wearing to maybe indoors, to maybe just high-risk settings at the appropriate time."

"But again, masks are a small impost for the individual, for us collectively, to get us to freedom we are all looking for and beginning to enjoy."

Professor Sutton said the irony of yesterday’s protests against the COVID restrictions were that they were opposing the measures that had driven the state's cases's down.

"It's madness to give up some of these small imposts when they are the exact things getting us these zero days and getting us to the summer that we want and the summer we should have," he said.

'Victoria needs to be vigilant'

In echoes of his esteemed leader, Premier Daniel Andrews, Mr Merlino said while Sunday was "another great day for Victoria", countries across the world were enduring soaring infections.

"COVID is not over, the global pandemic is not over," Mr Merlino said. "Victoria needs to be as vigilant as they have been this week and moving more forward."

Professor Sutton said France was recording 50,000 cases a day, while Belgium had been forced to send patients outside of the country because the healthcare system was too overwhelmed.

"What Europe is going through now is a consequence of not being able to get to this point where you can stay on top of very low numbers," Professor Sutton said. "What we have created is very precious and we need to hold onto it tightly."

Professor Sutton stressed that Victorians should feel confident about heading out into the community and doing activities they enjoy.

"We deserve to enjoy ourselves now," he said. "We got to this incredible point where case numbers are very low and we have days of literally no true cases so we should go out, with all the precautions we talked about, but we need to enjoy our lives after three months of really constrained activity. We know how to protect ourselves. It is doing the right thing, wearing a mask, keeping a distance, making sure that if there are people unwell around us, we are not interacting with them."

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2020-10-31 23:51:00Z
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