No free ride for Covid-19 unvaccinated, says Daniel Andrews

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says he has no plans to emulate the NSW government’s road map.

Alex Liu, co-owner of Meet Sando sandwich bar in Elizabeth St, Melbourne, says business has been affected by last week’s protests. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says he has no plans to emulate the NSW government’s road map in giving people determined to remain unvaccinated a date by which they will be able to enjoy freedoms granted to those who have ­received both jabs.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday announced that while adults in her state would need to be fully vaccinated to visit venues and gather in numbers once the 70 and 80 per cent vaccination thresholds were met in coming weeks, from December 1, the estimated 10 per cent of ­people who remained unvaccinated would be granted equal access.

Asked whether Victoria’s rules would similarly change once a 90 per cent vaccination rate was reached, Mr Andrews said: “I am not foreshadowing that at all. No.”

“There’s every reason to get vaccinated now, and I wouldn’t want to give anybody a reason to wait five or six weeks, because … 10 per cent of the community is still a very large number of people.”

“We haven’t even had an conversation about when that might change and when everyone might be on an equal footing, so disparate, so stark are the differences ­between the risks to the hospital system and to ill-health that a vaccinated person poses, versus an unvaccinated person.”

Responding to a Cricket Australia proposal in which Melbourne would miss out on the Boxing Day Test in favour of states with no Covid cases hosting the earlier matches in the Ashes series, Mr Andrews rubbished the notion that “Covid zero” states would remain without cases.

“I’m not here to commentate on other states, we’ve got enough to get on with here, but it’s just a point of fact, unless people are going to be cut off from everywhere for ever, it’s going to spread,” he said. “I hope our borders open by then. I’m sure Gladys hopes her borders will be open by then. I think to an extent, our international borders will be open by then. We want as much freedom of movement as possible.

“I don’t want people locked out of their state, and I don’t want people locked into their homes, but we will have people locked out of venues and events like the Boxing Day Test if they haven’t had two jabs.”

Mr Andrews’ comments came as Victoria recorded 705 new ­locally acquired Covid cases on Monday, down slightly on the seven-day average of 723.

The death of a man in his 70s from Darebin in Melbourne’s north brought the toll from the current outbreak to 25, with 363 people in Victorian hospitals with Covid on Monday, including 75 in intensive care, of whom 56 were on ventilators.

Meanwhile, as the state’s economy haemorrhages an estimated $1bn each week the state is in lockdown, inner-city traders last week saw the little foot traffic trade left within their 10km zones disappear with the arrival of angry hordes of men.

Alex Liu, co-owner of the Meet Sando gourmet sandwich bar near CFMEU headquarters on ­Elizabeth St, said last week’s protests prevented deliveries and saw the number of visitors to the Queen Victoria Markets plummet.

“Not just on Monday but ­pretty much throughout the week really,” he said. “It’s just added another layer of stress to be honest.”

Long lines formed outside Foodbank’s La Trobe St pop-up shop on Monday, with the charity forced to close last Wednesday instead of serving 600 international students.

Pedestrian foot traffic in the CBD is down 73.3 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels, while public transport use across trains, trams and buses is 16 per cent of pre-Covid use.

Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp said that during last week’s chaos her US-based son had called her to see if she had been harmed. “That’s not how we want to project ourselves in the world,” she said. “But I think in the scheme of things that’s what Monty Python refers to as a flesh wound … It does hurt, but it’s not fatal.”

Ms Capp said she’d been inundated with messages of support from people determined to bring Melbourne back to life.