Victoria's snap five-day lockdown will officially end at 11.59pm tonight.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Premier Daniel Andrews made the anticipated announcement this morning, following a day without any new COVID-19 cases from almost 40,000 tests, the biggest day of testing on record in Victoria.
Coronavirus rules will be slightly more restrictive than last week, before lockdown was introduced.
IN OTHER NEWS
Among the key changes will be:
- Masks will still be required in all indoor settings and outdoor settings where 1.5 metres of socially distancing cannot be maintained.
- Visitor restrictions inside households will now be at five (instead of 15 last week).
- Only 20 people can gather at outdoor gatherings from any number of households.
- Return to work, both private and government, is back to 50 per cent capacity.
- Schools will reopen on Thursday and hospitality will return to their previous limits.
- Weddings, funerals and religious gatherings can also resume, subject to venue capacity density limits.
- A hospital patient can be visited by one household, once per day.
WATCH THE PRESS CONFERENCE HERE
"I am very pleased to be able to announce that as we indicated on Friday, this will be a five day short sharp circuit breaker," Mr Andrews said.
Despite much of the state rejoicing, there are still around 70 Ballarat families connected to Redan's St Aloysius Primary School in home isolation.
They will need to remain in isolation until Friday, February 26 after a group of pupils visited Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market last week around the same time as a confirmed coronavirus case.
"A big shout out to the primary school in Ballarat for doing the hard work for us in regional Victoria," said head of testing Jeroen Weimar.
"All of them have been tested, results are coming through, they're continuing to isolate. My thanks to them, it's such an important thing to do."
SEE THE FULL LIST OF CHANGES HERE
There is expected to be further changes announced to the new rules on Friday next week, depending on case numbers.
"We will continue to review all restrictions, not foreshadowing any changes between now and Friday week, we're not going to make them better or worse," Mr Andrews said.
"The 14-day period is there for a reason, that's how long this virus can take to come forward, how long it can take to get a positive test."
READ A STATEMENT FROM THE PREMIER HERE
The Courier has removed the paywall from our stories relating to health warnings and safety of the community in regards to the coronavirus. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support.