Rolling coverage: No masks outdoors, 30 at home for Christmas, office workers to return
Big family gatherings are on the cards this Christmas, with Victoria’s final rules changes for the year to be announced in a fortnight.
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Victorians can look forward to large family gatherings in their homes on Christmas Day with 30 visitors allowed at homes from 11.59pm on Sunday, December 13.
Infants under 12 months are not included in the cap, but all other dependants are.
It comes as the state on Sunday marked 23 days without recording a new coronavirus case.
As one active case remains in the entire state, more than 10,500 tests were received on Saturday.
“That is not 30 for lunch and 30 for dinner, it is 30 across the course of the day,” Premier Daniel Andrews said.
“I know that will be a large enough number for some families, and for others they will need to do some juggling.”
FAQ: THE RESTRICTIONS CHANGING IN VICTORIA OVERNIGHT
In welcome news ahead of summer, masks will no longer be necessary outdoors from Monday, as long as people keep a safe distance from each other. But masks will still have to be used in all indoor settings.
The Premier said masks would still need to be carried outside the home.
“If you go to Bunnings and you are inside the store, you are wearing a mask,” he said.
“If you are in the car park, you do not have to wear your mask. But if you are queuing up for a sausage, and you are with other people, and you are simply not keeping a distance, you are part of a crowd, you need to put the mask on.”
Mr Andrews said carrying a mask outdoors was “common sense”.
“If you are outside in the open now, and you believe you can keep your distance from people, you do not need to wear it,” he said.
Just to reiterate:
— Dan Andrews (@DanielAndrewsMP) November 22, 2020
Inside Bunnings = mask
Bunnings carpark if you can keep 1.5m apart = no mask
In the Bunnings sausage sizzle line = mask
Onions = on top of the sausage
I can't be clearer than that.
“But carry it with you, because those circumstances can change. Cath and I went for a walk the other morning. We had our masks on.
“If we had not been wearing a mask, we turned the corner and there was a large group of people walking in front of us, all of a sudden you are part of a crowd.”
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton predicted that the indoor mask rule could be dropped by the beginning of 2021, describing face coverings as an “insurance policy”.
“You don’t want to be in a situation where you suddenly find that hundreds of people have been exposed and people weren’t wearing masks in an indoor setting,” he said.
“We do need to see ourselves get to this 28-day threshold. It is an insurance policy that is most useful when it is in place before the fact.
“If you introduce it after the fact when transmission has occurred, you will have less value … There are some examples in the United States, North and South Dakota — they have basically been anti-masks at a legislative level for some months.
“They have the highest rates of transmission in the world at the moment, absolutely overwhelmed health system.”
He also said studies revealed the risk of transmission was up to 18 times higher indoors, compared to outdoors.
“It’s pretty unusual for outdoor outbreaks to occur,” Prof Sutton said. “The Rose Garden at the White House is a famous example, there are some where there has been singing or shouting — or some other exertion — where the risk of transmission can occur.
“But largely, they are enclosed spaces, prolonged period of time, people in closer contact and again, with the singing, speaking, shouting, it increases the risk.”
WORKERS RETURN TO OFFICE, LIMITS INCREASE
Office workers are also set to return from next Monday, with 25 per cent of staff able to return to the office.
“Seventy-five per cent will need to still work from home,” the Premier said.
“We can’t usefully speculate when the next jump will be.
“It will be up to the employer to make sure there are no more than 25 per cent of staff in the office.”
But the public sector will not return to the office, in order to create “additional space” for the private sector.
From 11.59pm Sunday, Victorians can host 15 visitors at their home per day.
The visitors can be from across multiple households, but the limit applies to the total number of visitors in a day.
“You can split it across different events and it can be multiple households, so you could have five for lunch and 10 for dinner,” Mr Andrews said.
Outdoor gatherings in public spaces will increase to 50.
At-home rules apply to holiday accommodation, so travellers can stay in a group of up to 15 people, including dependants.
Other changes include increasing patronage at indoor gyms from 20 to 150 and weddings and funerals will soon be allowed to have 150 attendees – depending on the venue size.
The same goes for restaurants, cafes, bars and cinemas with up to 150 allowed indoors, and 200 outdoors. However, only 50 people will be allowed inside smaller venues.
There are some changes around who can visit aged care settings, with up to five people from two households allowed.
The limits at community centres, libraries and places of worship will increase to groups of no more than 20 people, with the total number of patrons capped at 100.
Outdoor religious ceremonies will increase to groups of 50, with a cap of 500.
A final set of eased restrictions will be announced in a fortnight on December 6, with Mr Andrews saying they would be the final changes for 2020.
“It’s very difficult to know what the rules will look like in March or April next year, we may have a vaccine by then, it’s very difficult to know — so it’s about breaking this down into smaller blocks, if you like,” he said.
“Two weeks has been something that served us very well, waiting the two-week period before we made changes between rules. That’s why today I’m standing here announcing all the things we said we would do a fortnight ago, and we have been able to go further.
“On December 6, I will be here again and hopefully I will be able to make further changes. I think they will be the last changes this year … we would lock those in and that gets us through the Christmas period, into the early part of the new year and then there may be opportunities for us to go further again.”
COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION SQUASHED: SUTTON
When asked if Victoria was likely to eliminate coronavirus, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he was confident there was no community transmission in Victoria.
“We have not got into the epidemiological threshold of 28 days yet but I’m confident we will get to that,” he said.
But Prof Sutton pointed to the South Australian outbreak and said Victorians had to be on high alert.
“Incursions happen. We have seen a big outbreak in South Australia that could have been much bigger if it hadn’t been picked up at the early stage that it has been,” he said.
“That will be an ongoing risk until there is really substantial rollout of vaccine across the world. And that is some months away, at least six months.
“And we’re not going to get full coverage of vaccination for all of our international arrivals for an even longer period of time so we just have to be mindful of these things that we’re going to have in place for distancing, use of masks, hand hygiene, cough etiquette, they are insurance policy for any incursion that may happen into the future.”
Prof Sutton said Victoria was in a different situation compared to the tail end of the first wave.
“We had not gotten to a point where it looked like there was no community transmission, but we had an opportunity to see a new case arise and it was obvious that it arose,” he said.
“We were still seeing the tail end of the first wave when cases started to pick up in the second wave.
“So the second wave in a sense was hidden in the tail end of the first wave, but made it difficult to see exactly what was happening and occurring in the same geographical area of Melbourne as well, so that was a challenge.
“It is much easier, much more straightforward to have days and days of no transmission to then see if you have a new incursion and then to just absolutely jump on it.”
VIC-NSW BORDER TO REOPEN
The border between New South Wales and Victoria will reopen within hours as each state celebrates weeks without any local cases of COVID-19.
The closure began on July 8 when Victoria’s second wave of triple-figure daily infection totals started to take hold. Only those with valid entry permits or authorisation could enter.
Sunday marked the Victoria’s 23rd consecutive day of no new coronavirus cases and Saturday was the 14th straight day of zero cases in NSW.
Earlier this month, the NSW government revealed the border will reopen at 12.01am on Monday, November 23.
Meanwhile, travellers from metropolitan Adelaide can only cross the Victorian border if they agree to certain conditions including providing details for contact tracing.
But visitors who have been exposed to one of the high-risk sites, as identified by the South Australian government, will not be granted a permit.
The 70km bubble for border communities – that was in place before the Adelaide outbreak – has also been re-established.
Mr Andrews said he aimed to fully reopen the Victorian border by December 1.
EUROPEAN-STYLE CABANA BEACH CLUB COMING
Melbourne’s beaches will be the place to be seen this summer as pop-up beach bars revive the hospitality sector.
Beachside councils are taking advantage of eased restrictions and have expanded outdoor dining along foreshores — granting temporary summer permits to local businesses.
Port Philip City Council mayor Louise Crawford said about 10 traders had applied.
“By setting up chairs and tables for outdoor diners on the sand and at grassed foreshore reserves, traders can safely serve more patrons under the Victorian government’s COVID-19 restrictions,” she said.
St Kilda Sea Baths marketing manager Travis Atkins said the venue planned to open a European-style cabana beach club on the sand and was in the final stages of receiving approval.
“We’re thinking we’ll have acoustic guitar and make it relaxed, not a big party,” he said.
The Hotel Exchange Beach Club pop-up bar also makes a return on the sand in Port Melbourne from December 4.
“It’s been a tough year for hospitality so we’re really excited to be offering Melburnians a new and exciting outdoor dining experience for summer,” Australian Venue Co marketing manager Shakira Leric said.
Frankston City Council has issued 20 permits so far.
Mornington Peninsula Shire, Bayside, Kingston and Hobsons Bay Councils have also expanded outdoor trading.
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