Next nine days crucial as snap COVID lockdown ends in Victoria

Victoria’s snap lockdown may be over but authorities say the risk is ‘not over’, and the next nine days will be crucial to stop the outbreak.

Victoria’s snap five-day lockdown may have been lifted on time, but authorities have warned the state is not out of the woods just yet.

While announcing that restrictions would ease at 11.59pm on Wednesday, Premier Daniel Andrews said the risk from the Holiday Inn cluster was “not over”.

Mr Andrews said the last of the positive cases still had nine days remaining to complete their 14-day incubation period.

“Next Friday we’ll be able to be even more definitive about the epidemiological picture across the state, the status of the virus across the state,” the Premier said.

“That means that while we can revert to almost all the settings that applied last Friday, our COVID-safe summer settings, there are some exceptions.

“We have to be vigilant, it’s not over, but our contract tracers have done an amazing job.”

One of the exceptions is the continued wearing of masks outdoors if social distancing cannot be maintained and only five visitors allowed to homes, down from 15.

Victoria’s COVID response commander Jeroen Weimar said 1312 primary close contacts linked to the exposure sites would also continue to isolate for the next nine days.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced the snap lockdown would end on Wednesday night. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

“We have a lot of work to do in our team over the next nine or 10 days to make sure we close down this outbreak,” he said.

“We’ve got nine days to go, we will see more developments, and our absolute expectation and hope is that will be within the primary close contact field, the 3500 people we’ve got locked down, but if it goes beyond that, we’ll be up for that.”

Chief health officer Brett Sutton urged Victorians to keep coming forward and getting tested, especially over the next nine days to help close down the outbreak and “make sure that we’re picking up anything that’s emerging”.

The number of active cases in Victoria is 25, made up of 16 locally acquired cases and nine cases in hotel quarantine.

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to the Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn – the cluster that sent Victoria back into a third lockdown – remains at 19.

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