Coronavirus: Restrictions to be eased despite spike in Victorian cases

Victoria will proceed with plans to ease coronavirus restrictions and allow indoor gatherings of up to 50 people from Monday.

Victorian Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen. Picture: AAP

Victoria will proceed with plans to ease coronavirus restrictions and allow indoor gatherings of up to 50 people from Monday, despite concern­s following three days of double-digit increases in the state’s COVID-19 case numbers.

However, the Andrews government says it is monitoring the situation “on an hourly basis” and will not rule out changes to restrictions should numbers rise significantly.

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee has previously indicated it is using a non-quarantine ­infection rate of fewer than 10 new cases per day nationally as a rough benchmark to determine­ the timing of the further easing­ of restrictions.

Over the seven days to Friday, Australia’s national daily average number of cases was 17, and Victoria­’s was 12.7, although many of these cases were detected in returned­ overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.

 

Victoria confirmed 13 new corona­virus cases on Friday, includ­ing two cases linked to a new family outbreak, six linked to known outbreaks, one detected in hotel quarantine, three identified through routine testing, and one that remains under investigation.

Thursday’s 18 new cases includ­ed eight identified through community transmissions and three under investigation. There were 21 new cases on Wednesday, with 15 of those in returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.

NSW confirmed seven cases on Friday and Western Australia one, with no new cases in other states.

Five of Victoria’s new cases have been found in contract security guards working at the Stamford Plaza hotel in Melbourne, where recently returned overseas travellers have been quarantined.

Victoria’s Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen said on Friday that health author­ities “remain vigilant”.

“Today’s numbers to me are less concerning, probably, than yes­terday’s numbers, given the known links with most of these cases,” Dr van Diemen said. “Really, it’s cases that we don’t have known links to that are the biggest concern for us, and there’s fewer of those today than there were ­yesterday, so that’s a good sign.

“Monday’s restrictions are going ahead as planned, and we will continue to monitor and determin­e what may or may not come after Monday.”

Earlier, senior minister Jacinta Allan refused to rule out changes to the state’s restriction easing timeline, saying: “We’ve indicated that we’re mon­it­­oring the data on an hourly basis.”

“We’ll continue to take the advice­ of the Chief Health Officer, and if there’s any change to those restrictions, we’ll give that inform­ation to (the) community as quickly as we possibly can.

“It’ll be based in part on what we’re seeing in terms of the community transmission of the virus, and the Premier has indicated this, and the Health Minister previously: we will always err on the side of caution. This is a deadly and dangerous virus. We’ve seen how quickly it can get away. We’ve seen how deadly it is, particularly in other parts of the world.”

Victorian Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said the state had become the “COVID capital” of Australia. “We’re seeing outbreaks here that we’re not seeing in any other state,” Mr O’Brien said.

He said he was very concerned about a possible postponement of the easing of social distancing restrictions. “There are a lot of small businesses who are basically on life support at the moment,” he said.

“They’ve been waiting for this opportunity to slowly reopen. If the government pulls the rug out from under them, it could just be the end of them.

“Yesterday we saw Victoria lost 70,000 jobs last month. That’s the worst figure in the country. We ­really need to make sure our economy does get back to work, but we need to do it safely.”