Due to the current level of community transmission of coronavirus in Victoria, the current lockdown is extended for seven more days till 11:59 pm July 27, 2021.
Travel to Victoria using Red Zone Permits is also temporarily paused, which will potentially lock out hundreds of Victorians wanting to return from interstate.
“It is to ensure we run this Delta outbreak to the ground.”
said Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews.
“We cannot put Victoria’s hard-earned gains at risk by letting this Delta variant run free. We want Victoria back open as soon as possible – and we’ll do everything in our power to get us there safely and quickly,” stressed Premier Andrews.
This means that current settings will continue for the next seven days until Tuesday, 27 July at 11.59 pm.
There are only five reasons to leave home:
1- Getting the food and the supplies you need,
2- Exercising for up to two hours,
3- Care or caregiving,
4- Work or education if you can’t do it from home,
5- To get vaccinated at the nearest possible location.
Victoria’s total number of active cases stands at 85.
Highlights:
- More than 15,000 primary close contacts in quarantine
- More than 250 exposure sites online stretching from Phillip Island to the Mallee; and
- Daily cases in double figures.
Shopping and exercise must be done within 5kms of your home or the nearest location.
It also means face masks will remain mandatory indoors (not at home) and outdoors unless an exception applies – this includes all workplaces and secondary schools.
Minor changes are made to the Authorised Premises and Authorised Worker List to include services that operate solely outdoors where physical distancing can be maintained at all times, pet grooming mobile services and pamphlet delivery services.
From Wednesday 21 July more students with disabilities will be able to return to on-site learning. Where a parent or carer indicates that a student with a disability cannot learn from home due to vulnerability or family stress, the school must provide on-site learning for that student. This change will apply to students enrolled in specialist schools and students with a disability enrolled in mainstream schools.
Minister for Health Martin Foley said, “We’ve had thousands of Victorians return from New South Wales in recent weeks, but with the situation escalating, the recent incursions and the increased infectiousness of the Delta variant, we must act to protect Victoria and temporarily pause Red Zone Permits.”
He claims, since the beginning of the second wave in Sydney, the Victorian Government has supported around 10,000 Victorians to return home from orange and red zone areas and health authorities have provided clear warnings that Victorians in NSW should get home as quickly as possible because of the escalating situation there.
“Due to the serious and persistent nature of the risk in NSW, we cannot continue to have hundreds of people coming to Victoria from the red zone every day.”
For this reason, the Chief Health Officer will temporarily pause the issuing of Red Zone Permits from 11:59 pm on Tuesday 20 July – pending a further review in a fortnight.
For at least the next two weeks, Victorian residents in red zones will require an exemption to enter the state – and these will only be granted in exceptional circumstances.
If people enter Victoria from New South Wales without an exemption, they will be put on a return flight or placed in 14 days mandatory quarantine under the COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria (CQV) program.
Fines of $5,452 may be imposed if a person is found to have entered Victoria from a red zone without a permit.
A person will still be able to enter Victoria from a red zone if they are aircrew, listed on the Specified Worker List, or transiting through Victoria to another jurisdiction – e.g. travelling from regional NSW through Mildura to get home to South Australia.
The CHO will continue to consider the status of the Australian Capital Territory, but the pause of Red Zone Permits also applies to that jurisdiction while it is classified as a red zone.
There are no changes to the current arrangements for border communities.
South Australia Update
20 July 2021
An announcement has been made regarding changes to public activity restrictions. Level 5 restrictions will be in place from 6:00 pm in the whole of South Australia.
South Australia’s Premier Steven Marshall told, “The lockdown will be for seven days due to confirmation that the outbreak is the highly transmissible Delta strain.”
“This is a highly infectious strain and that is why we are taking these extreme precautions.”
From 6 pm, there are just five reasons South Australians can leave their home:
- Care and compassion reasons
- Essential work
- Medical reasons including vaccination and testing
- Purchase of essential goods, such as a food
- Exercise limited to those from the same household
Level four restrictions were brought back into effect at midnight after three new cases were detected in the community yesterday. One of the positive cases is the daughter of an 81-year-old man who returned from Argentina and also tested positive. The other two include a man and woman in their 50s.
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said the new case linked to the Greek on Halifax restaurant is concerning authorities as more people could have been infected at that venue.”I want to get the message out if anyone has been to the Greek on Halifax – you need to get into quarantine and get tested,” Professor Spurrier said.
“If we have more and more people continuing to move, this virus will spread – we’ve seen how quickly things can get out of control in NSW and Victoria.”
From 20 July 2021 masks are required in enclosed public places where people are present with people from different households. This includes shared indoor public places (eg. shops), passenger transport services, health care services, high-risk settings.
