Ballarat and regional Victoria is breathing a sigh of relief after being freed from the state's sixth lockdown, with schools, retailers and hospitality businesses reopening on Tuesday morning.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The announcement from Premier Daniel Andrews on Monday morning was surprising to many, but welcome relief to businesses across Ballarat, with most expecting to be closed for a few more days until at least Thursday, if not longer.
Commerce Ballarat chief executive Jodie Gillett said while it was pleasing to see regional Victoria open up, businesses were still hurting from another lost weekend.
"There's a lot of anger and desperation out there and whilst we're reopening today, what people need to realise is that businesses have lost enormous amounts of money over the weekend," she said.
"They were stocked for the weekend, most of them had really busy weekends coming up, they had accommodation booked, they had meals booked, it will have cost our businesses a fortune. We need to get better at doing this."
READ MORE:
From Tuesday, regional Victoria will return to the restrictions that were in place previously, with schools, retail and hospitality reopening, but home visits still banned.
While the five reasons to leave home and five-kilometres radius have been removed, regional Victorians can only travel to Melbourne for a permitted reason and must follow the restrictions while they are there.
Up to 10 people are allowed at outdoor gatherings and face masks remain mandatory indoors and outdoors.
Hospitality businesses can open to up to 100 people with a density limit of one person per four square metres while venues smaller than 100 square metres can have up to 25 people before density limits apply.
Ms Gillett said the city's businesses were prepared to follow the rules.
"For the most part, our businesses have been doing that for a very long time," she said.
"If there are no more cases in regional Victoria, we have to continue to see a relaxing of the capacity limits to allow them to trade more than they are now.
"Our businesses are very committed to doing what they need to do to keep their community safe."
Sturt Street cafe Homeground Cafe and Bakery was severely impacted by the lockdown, losing much of its crucial day trade provided by CBD workers, but will be able to open again on Tuesday morning.
"We're very happy. We expected it may happen on late Thursday night or could've continued for another week, but to be actually open at 11.59 tonight and be able to open 8am Tuesday to as normal trade as we can is very pleasing," co-owner Brendan Hanrahan said.
IN OTHER NEWS:
"Being our sixth lockdown, we're a little bit more prepared where we don't carry huge amounts of stock anymore. You're not expecting it, but it's not a complete surprise when it does come around again. Like everyone, we monitor the numbers and that every morning coming out of state government."
Deakin University chair in epidemiology Professor Catherine Bennett said while it was good news for regional Victoria, much about the latest outbreak was still unknown.
"At this stage, it looks good, but I guess that's the thing, you just have to wait and see what happens because they're still investigating the outbreak in Melbourne. They still don't know where these clusters picked up the virus from and until that's fully met, we won't really fully understand the risk," she said.
"Things like testing, all those other precautions we've got in place about household visits and so on, all of that really still matters. It's good news that this latest cluster doesn't put direct risk in any areas of regional Victoria, but the reason all those other restrictions are still in place is because we don't know exactly where the virus is anymore."
If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Courier, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ballarat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great city.