All eyes and ears will be on Premier Daniel Andrew's press conference today and whether the state will reopen, as planned, from midnight.
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But whatever the decision, for the families of 72 students and staff from Redan's St Aloysius Catholic Primary School the wait is going to be a lot longer as they complete a mandatory 14 day quarantine period after potential exposure to the virus at the Queen Victoria Market on a school camp last week.
Jeroen Weimar, the head of Victoria's COVID-19 testing program, said all pupils and staff from the school had been tested for coronavirus on Monday and were awaiting results.
There were two new cases of community COVID-19 transmission confirmed in the state on Tuesday, both linked to the Holiday Inn cluster and already isolating. There were also two cases in returned travellers, bringing the total number of active cases in the state to 25.
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Despite the low numbers, Premier Andrews refused to speculate on the details of the easing of the "circuit breaker" restrictions.
However, he did give a special thanks to people in isolation, such as those connected to St Aloysius.
"If I can give a shout out...to those people who because they've come in contact or they've been at a location where someone had the virus was, they are in lockdown for 14 days," he said. "Let's spare a thought for them, all of us as Victorians thank them for the sacrifice they are making on behalf of all of us."
Since news of their enforced isolation broke this week, St Aloysius has been inundated with messages of support from families, other schools and principals within the Diocese of Ballarat, and the community according to a statement from the Catholic Education Office Ballarat.
"St Aloysius School community has demonstrated such kindness and compassion for each other given the current circumstances. Despite the many challenges surrounding the imposed quarantine being experienced by St Aloysius' School staff and students, a silver lining has emerged," the statement said.
"The support offered to the school has been overwhelmingly positive and despite their many challenges, students, families and staff are working together to make the most of a difficult situation."
Grade five and six children will learn remotely during their isolation period and staff not directly impacted by the quarantine have rallied to prepare computers for home learning and the online resources those students and teachers will need.
In addition to the Ballarat students and staff, there were also 34 stallholders from the market identified as primary close contacts, and other shoppers. "All of those people have been tested, we are working through those test results," Mr Weimar said.
Premier Andrews said the low number of new community transmission cases meant Victoria was 'well-placed' for changes to stage four restrictions as planned from 11.59pm Wednesday but warned some restrictions would remain.
"We'll still have to get tested if we have symptoms, we'll still have to wear masks in a number of settings, there will still be limits to the number of people that can come to your home," he said. "We're looking to get back to as close to what that resting COVID-normal was as (soon as) we can but we've got to do it safely."
But he did say the announcements would be state-wide, not region-specific. "As I said (Monday) in some detail, you can't set up a ring of steel in five minutes," he said.
"If you give people any notice whatsoever in Melbourne that there would be a stage four lockdown, logic tells you - and indeed past practice tells you - that very significant numbers of people from metropolitan Melbourne would have travelled into regional Victoria.
"We don't have cases in regional Victoria and we're determined to keep it that way."
The announcement will come as the country prepares to start the first phase of COVID-19 vaccinations. Priority vaccinations with the Pfizer vaccine begin next week, and the Therapeutic Goods Administration yesterday approved the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for use in Australia, paving the way for locally manufactured doses to be rolled out next month.
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