More restrictions not ruled out for Victoria in face of Omicron

Daniel Andrews has been grilled about reintroducing Covid restrictions on his first day back at work from summer leave.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has not ruled out further restrictions coming into place in the state, telling Victorians he “does not know” what the next six months will bring.

Victoria recently reintroduced low-level restrictions in the wake of Omicron, including mask-wearing indoors, density limits on hospitality and the banning of indoor dance floors.

Authorities this week also brought in a third dose vaccine mandate for workers in critical industries such as health care, food processing and emergency response.

Despite promising no more lockdowns once the state hit its vaccine targets in 2021, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Tuesday said he wanted to maintain as much normalcy as possible.

Mr Andrews said he wanted to maintain normalcy for the state.

“I don’t know what variant is coming in a month or in six months, so I can never give you an absolute answer to these things,” he said.

“But we’re going to do everything we possibly can to have as few rules as possible. That’s what living with this, or normalising this or pushing beyond it is all about.”

Mask wearing is now mandatory indoors in Victoria.

Victoria on Tuesday hit its highest hospitalisation level since the pandemic began.

There are now 861 infected people in Victorian hospitals, with 117 in intensive care and 27 on ventilators.

Victoria’s previous peak for Covid hospitalisations was 851 in October, when the state was battling a surge in Delta infections.

The state recorded 37,994 new cases and 13 Covid deaths in the past 24 hours.

Victoria could see more restrictions in the coming months. Picture: Andrew Henshaw / NCA NewsWire

Mr Andrews batted away questioning from reporters about lockdowns in the face of surging infections.

“The only one talking about lockdowns at this press conference is you; Victorians have given a lot and I want that to count for something,” he said.

“We’ve asked Victorians to do what was incredibly important and that was to get a first and a second dose.

“We’ve now got this variant; the first and second dose still protects us against serious illness in the vast majority of cases, but from a transmission point of view, from an infection point of view, the vaccines don’t work anywhere near as well against this new Omicron variant.

“Nothing safeguards what we’ve built more than getting a third dose or getting your kids vaccinated.”