Coronavirus Victoria: Why pubs are still open amid home visit ban
Residents in six regional Victorian council areas have been banned from having visitors in their homes, but can still visit the pub. Here’s why.
The Victorian Premier has explained the reasoning behind banning gatherings at home in parts of regional Victoria while allowing pubs to remain open, saying it was guided by data.
Daniel Andrews today announced residents in six Victorian regional council areas will no longer be allowed to have guests in their homes from 11.59pm tonight.
The restriction affects people living in the Colac-Otway Shire, Greater Geelong, the Surf Coast, Moorabool, Golden Plains, and the Borough of Queenscliffe council areas. These residents, however, can still go out for dinner and go to the pub, if they wish.
“Understandably, there’ll be plenty of questions about why this and not that,” Mr Andrews said in a statement today. “Why you can have dinner together at a restaurant – but not at a mate’s place.”
He said data indicated the second biggest source of community spread of coronavirus was happening inside people’s homes, between friends or family members.
“We have seen a number of cases where families are giving it to each other — visitors in your home,” Mr Andrews said today.
He said transmission in people’s homes accounted for a smaller number than what was occurring in workplaces, but it remained a “worry” for contact tracers.
The new restrictions were “targeted (at) dealing with the problem” and weren’t just being done “so that there is a sense in the community that we are doing things”.
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The Premier said if there wasn’t chains of transmission in people’s homes the government would be “solely focused on large, high risk workplaces”.
“But when the advice comes in and says there is community transmission down in that corridor, there are household chains of transmission as well … this is exactly the right step to take and again I go back to the counterintuitive point of the pub and your mate’s place and when you think about it, and this is what the public health team have done, thought deeply and looked at the data in really fine, fine detail, they are controlled environments,” he said.
“Having friends over to your house is not a controlled environment and we do, it is not a criticism, it is just one of those facts of life I think that people that they guard down a bit and we finish up with people infecting others.”
HOW WILL IT WORK?
Mr Andrews said Victoria plans to “essentially copy” overseas models that are being used in places like Oregon.
“If you are seated you do not need to have a mask on,” he said. “But if you are not seated, then you have your mask on.”
Mr Andrews said he knows it’s not how we’re used to hospitality looking, but it has “worked in other parts of the world”.
“I think people will adapt to that.”
Mr Andrews also announced today that wearing masks or face coverings would become mandatory across all of regional Victoria. The new mandate will take effect from 11.59pm on August 2.
Wearing masks had already been mandated in Greater Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire.
The announcement came as the state reported a staggering 723 new cases of COVID-19 over a 24 hour period.