Victorian regions won’t get early freedoms if 70 per cent vaccination target reached

Regional communities beating the rest of Victoria on vaccination rates have been dealt some bitter news on getting more freedoms.

Victoria’s top public health official says regions and suburbs won’t receive freedoms early even if they reach vaccination targets before the rest of the state.

Brett Sutton told reporters on Tuesday there would be no early freedoms for certain local government areas even if they got to the 70 per cent fully vaccinated target before the rest of Victoria.

On Tuesday, Professor Sutton was asked if Geelong – which is not lockdown and has a double dose vaccination rate of above 69 per cent – would be released early once they reached the target.

He said that wouldn’t be the case as the road map was statewide.

“It is really difficult to pick off individual local government areas as people would make the claim for a patchwork of LGAs within metropolitan Melbourne on that basis,” Professor Sutton said.

Lockdown will end when Victoria reaches 70 per cent double vaccinated in just over a week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

“We are looking to that state wide average. But again, every local government area that doesn’t have that higher vaccination coverage, there will be movement of people through your LGA into regional Victoria and across Melbourne, more so as time goes by.

“Everyone needs to consider what that means for their personal risk but also for their community safety.”

Lockdown is set to end in metropolitan Melbourne around October 26 when 70 per cent of Victorians aged 16 and older are fully vaccinated.

At that point, fully vaccinated Victorians will be able to return to pubs and restaurants, and all schools will reopen for onsite learning.

Chief health officer Brett Sutton said it was an entire state target. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

As of Tuesday, at least 86.7 per cent of Victorians aged 16 and over had at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 59.8 per cent were fully vaccinated.

Premier Daniel Andrews has committed to ending the lockdown as planned when the state reaches 70 per cent fully vaccinated.

Professor Sutton has not ruled out reopening earlier than October 26 if the state hit the 70 per cent target or was around the mark a few days before.

Some modelling has Victoria on track to reach the 70 per cent milestone of people aged 16 and older fully vaccinated by October 23.

“If we move there faster there’s obviously consideration of having public health directions kick in a little earlier,” he said.

Victoria recorded 1466 new cases on Tuesday.

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