Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton says Covid-19 situation remains ‘volatile’ despite easing of restrictions

Victorian authorities are not ruling out a fifth lockdown, saying the way to avoid the harsh Covid-19 measure depends on two things.

Victorian authorities are not ruling out another lockdown, saying the only way to avoid the harsh measure depends on the success of the commonwealth’s vaccine rollout and a purpose-built facility for hotel quarantine.

Melburnians will be released from a two-week lockdown on Friday, with harsh Covid-19 measures to remain across Victoria as the state recovers from an outbreak that started in early May.

But amid the “significant announcements” on Wednesday, Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino did not rule out a fifth lockdown for Victoria.

“In terms of any further lockdowns – whether we are talking about Victoria, New South Wales, WA or SA – this is a global pandemic and it is impacting our nation,” he told reporters.

“The path to easing of restrictions completely and living a normal life is up to the successful rollout of the commonwealth‘s vaccination program and the construction and the operation of a purpose-built quarantine facility for our highest-risk people.

“That has always been the path through this pandemic.”

Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino announces an easing of restrictions as Melbourne comes out of lockdown. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

The federal government last week announced it would back a Victorian plan to build a purpose-built coronavirus quarantine facility in the state.

The Andrews government proposed a 500-bed facility at Mickleham in Melbourne‘s north, next to an existing quarantine facility for plants and animals.

But the Morrison government is understood to prefer a site next to Avalon Airport, about 30km southwest of Melbourne CBD, which the Victorian government is also open to.

In the meantime, Mr Merlino said Victorian authorities could only make the current hotel quarantine system “as safe as we possibly can”.

“If and when there is an outbreak, we absolutely run it to the ground,” he said.

“We are constantly looking at the current situation, the outbreak, every outbreak is different and this year we are dealing with a variant of the virus that is 50 per cent more infectious than what we were dealing with last year.”

Melbourne’s fourth lockdown in 12 months will end on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton said the situation in Victorian remained “volatile”.

“We have to recognise it remains a reasonably volatile situation,” he said.

“The idea of a snap back to absolutely no restrictions whatsoever, no one has done that after significant community transmission.

“We have to move by increments, safely, but with the minimum restrictions that we know will continue to control this.”

It comes as the latest outbreak to plunge Victoria into a lockdown was revealed to have come from hotel quarantine.

Victorian chief health officer Professor Brett Sutton says the situation in Victoria remains extremely volatile. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

Health authorities on Tuesday night made the major breakthrough, finding a genomic link between a returned traveller who entered the state’s hotel quarantine system on May 8 and the West Melbourne Delta cluster.

That cluster of 14 cases was affected by the Delta Covid-19 Indian variant, infamous for its rapid spread across the subcontinent.

Professor Sutton acknowledged hotel quarantine would never be “zero risk” but said he was confident in the measures Victorian authorities had put into place.

“We should never consider that there isn’t a risk of the virus coming out of hotel quarantine,” he said.

“We see that lesson again and again from across Australia, and we should always look to improvements or alternative quarantine arrangements that can change the risk profile.

“That is why the call out testing for anyone, even when we have no transmission across the country, we just never know.”

Originally published as Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton says Covid-19 situation remains ‘volatile’ despite easing of restrictions