What needs to happen before Tassie borders open to Victoria

The State Government has revealed a “set of criteria” that needs to be met before borders open to Victoria – with hopes it may be sooner than December 1. FULL DETAILS + LATEST >>

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PUBLIC Health has given Tasmanians the “magic number” needed to reopen its borders to Victoria – but there is still a question of whether it will happen before December 1.

At a COVID-19 update this week, Director of Public Health Dr Mark Veitch said to declassify an area as a medium or high risk jurisdiction, there needs to be less than five cases of community transmission of coronavirus in 28 days.

Dr Veitch explained the metric as Premier Peter Gutwein announced Tasmania would reopen its borders to NSW on November 6, with the government confident in the state’s contact tracing and dropping virus numbers.

Director of Public Health Dr Mark Veitch at a coronavirus government update. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

The positive outlook could also see Tasmanians trapped in Victoria able to quarantine at home earlier than December 1, avoiding the $2800 mandatory government quarantine fee.

“At the moment we’ve set a criteria of less than five unexplained cases of community transmission in the last 28 days,” Dr Veitch said.

“Victoria is a little way off from actually achieving that low number of unexplained community cases, but should they get close to it we may be in a position to allow Victorians to enter and home quarantine in Tasmania.

“But it is a little way off yet. The Premier has signalled we are most likely to make a significant change to the arrangements for Victoria around December 1.

“I would hope that we could provide some advice before then to give people some time to plan ... we would certainly need to see more than a couple of days with no cases.”

Dr Veitch hinted if Melbourne could not completely eradicate community transmission, Public Health would consider making a distinction between regional Victoria and Melbourne.

“It’s a safer choice and a more straight forward and unambiguous choice if we deal with Victoria as a whole,” he said.

“I don’t know if someone who comes across the border has been in Broadmeadows or Bendigo in the past few weeks.”

From November 8 Melbourne residents will freely be able to travel into regional Victoria, when the Victorian Government lifts its ‘Ring of Steel’ as part of internal restriction easing.

Melbourne overnight recorded two cases of COVID-19 and two deaths on its first day of freedom.

WHAT ARE THE CURRENT RESTRICTIONS?

Any Victorian or anyone who has spent time in Victoria will have to undertake mandatory government quarantine if they want to come to Tasmania.

This does not include travellers from COVID-safe states who travel through Victoria, only stopping for essentials such as petrol and food, to transit on the Spirit of Tasmania.

Travellers from NSW will be able to enter Tasmania without quarantining from November 6, with further details expected early next week.

Incoming travellers from COVID-safe states must also fill out a Tas e-Travel form, while travellers from NSW and Victoria, until they are declared low risk, must still fill out a G2G Pass.

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