We have the tennis to thank for new balanced approach to COVID

We can thank the Australian Open for Victoria’s new proportionate COVID response, but how long it lasts is anyone’s guess.

Victorians are holding their collective breath wondering how long Dan Andrews’ proportionate response to the COVID crisis will last.

Will the premier’s newly found resolve against draconian measures endure once the Australian Open is done and dusted?

Or will he revert to form once the decision to hold the tournament is no longer under intense scrutiny?

On Sunday another hotel quarantine worker tested positive for COVID-19 but this time the announcement wasn’t followed by an emergency late-night press conference.

The latest positive case was a hotel quarantine worker at the Holiday Inn at Melbourne Airport.

Premier Andrews was even absent from Monday’s press conference allowing Police Minister Lisa Neville and Health Minister Martin Foley to explain the latest case.

Minister Neville said that authorities would continue to make changes to the program as issues came to light but was unequivocal in stating that there had been no breach of infection prevention control protocols.

That begs the question if everyone is following best practise then why are workers becoming infected and then interacting with the public?

We need answers given Victoria is set to increase its intake of returned travellers.

From February 15 Victoria will take an additional 200 overseas arrivals per week taking the weekly total to 1,300.

NSW which has taken more people through hotel quarantine than the rest of the country combined will increase its intake to just over 3,000 people a week, while Queensland will double their intake to 1,000 a week.

One can only hope that Victoria has belatedly learnt from the NSW example where Premier Gladys Berejiklian has shown you can keep the community safe without locking down the population and destroying the economy every time there is a spike in infections.

Craig Tiley at the official opening of the Australian Open on Monday. Picture: Mackenzie Sweetnam/Getty Images

Today 75 per cent of the Victorian workforce was due to return to their workplace but the state government plan was “paused” after a man working at the Grand Hyatt for the Australian Open quarantine program tested positive to COVID-19 last week.

One cannot underplay the harsh impact that decision will have for struggling businesses particularly in the Melbourne CBD which has become a depressing shadow of its former self, but it could’ve been worse. Far worse.

Other state premiers from South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland have reacted hysterically to any incidence of COVID-19, shutting down cities or the entire state over a single infection.

You can in large part thank Premier Andrews decision to stage the Australian Open for his new found ‘balanced’ approach to the COVID crisis.

He could not impose harsh restrictions given it was his ‘captain’s call’ late last year to proceed with the grand slam during a pandemic.

The optics of locking down Victorians while allowing a tennis tournament to proceed would’ve been too much.

It’s great that the Open is taking place but it’s more than a little bizarre for the premier who started the year by banning Victorians stranded in NSW from coming back to their own homes to eagerly welcome hundreds of tennis stars, media and hangers on from COVID-19 hot spots around the world.

One can only hope that the Victorian government continues to learn from NSW which has long relied on competent contact tracing measures to contain any outbreaks of the virus.

The statistics speak for themselves; NSW with its bigger population and increased exposure through running the country’s biggest hotel quarantine program has only had 54 COVID-19 deaths compared to 820 deaths in Victoria.