Coronavirus: Fleeing Melburnians facing $5452 fines

More than 1.6 million Victorians living in the regions will be released early from lockdown as Melburnians prepare themselves for an anticipated extension of restrictions.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

More than 1.6 million Victorians living in the regions will be ­released early from lockdown as Melburnians prepare themselves for an anticipated extension of ­restrictions.

From Tuesday, 200 police officers armed with number plate- recognition technology will ­patrol the border between metropolitan Melbourne and country areas.

Any Melburnian caught in the regions without a valid exemption will be fined $5452 for breaching the chief health officer’s direction.

Premier Daniel Andrews refused to be drawn on whether Melbourne’s sixth lockdown would be extended and said ­regional businesses would have to verify the address of their customers to ensure they did not serve anyone from Melbourne.

“There’s no point going to ­regional Victoria – you won’t be able to buy so much as a litre of milk without establishing that you’re from regional Victoria,” he said.

Victoria recorded 11 new cases on Monday but contact tracers have yet to identify the original source of infection, despite ­genomics analysis confirming the current crop of cases are the Delta variant with origins in Sydney.

Mr Andrews ruled out introducing a ring of steel between Melbourne and regional areas, despite repeatedly calling in ­recent weeks on NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to introduce one to prevent the Delta variant bleeding from Sydney.

“I have a border to defend­ ­between Victoria and NSW and I’m not going to shut half the police stations in Melbourne to do something that Victoria Police and the public health team don’t think we need to do,“ he said. “There are 50, 60 active cases versus 5000 in NSW. That is where a ring of steel should be put on.”

Anne Webster. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

Victoria Police manned border checkpoints as part of the ring of steel between Melbourne and the regions for more than 100 days during the second wave, which claimed the lives of 801 people, last year.

The number of active cases in regional Victoria increased from seven on July 7, when the ring of steel was introduced, to 355 by August 2, the bulk of which were essential workers exempt from the restriction.

Nationals MP for Mallee Anne Webster said the decision to release the regions from lockdown six days early was the state government correcting a wrong, saying she had written to the Premier at the weekend.

“This lockdown was based on incorrect data and should have been lifted much sooner,” Dr Webster said. “We have suffered from unnecessary and disproportionate lockdowns over the last 16 months.”

There was one wastewater Covid detection in Wangaratta, in Victoria’s northeast, on July 30, but a second detection cited by Mr Andrews when he announced the state’s sixth lockdown on Thursday never occurred.

Health authorities confirmed on Saturday there had been more recent detections in Benalla, also in Victoria’s northeast, between August 4 and 6, and Healesville, closer to Melbourne.

Chief health officer Brett Sutton said wastewater monitoring may have detected positive samples from when Victorians were still allowed to move around the state freely.

From 11.59pm on Tuesday, Victorians outside metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire will be allowed to leave home for any reason.

Reported yesterday: 11 new local cases and no new cases acquired overseas.
- 17,101 vaccine doses were administered
- 38,987 test results were received
More later: https://t.co/lIUrl1hf3W#COVID19Vic#COVID19VicData [1/2] pic.twitter.com/BFELr5herD

— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) August 8, 2021