Staff Writers
Lockdown will end at midnight tonight for regional Victoria.
Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed the news at his daily COVID-19 press conference this morning.
“I’m very pleased to announce that on advice from the chief health officer that regional Victoria will be released from these lockdown measures and will snap-back to the settings that applied last Thursday,” Mr Andrews said.
“That is a very important decision and one that is made on the best of health advice and one that is fundamentally the function of not having cases in regional Victoria.”
The Chief Health Officer has advised that from 11:59pm tonight the five reasons to leave the home can be removed in regional Victoria and there will be no limit on the distance regional Victorians can travel from home.
However, people will only be able to travel to Melbourne for a permitted reason and you must follow the Melbourne restrictions once there.
Schools will re-open as of tomorrow, while businesses will be able to resume trading under the COVID-19 restrictions put in place following lockdown 5.0.
Masks will still be required for all indoor and outdoor settings.
Mr Andrews said police will be “out in force” to ensure people from Melbourne do not enter regional Victoria.
“Do not travel to regional Victoria unless you need to,” he said.
All businesses in regional Victoria will once again be required to check the ID’s of all patrons.
“There’s no point going to regional Victoria because you won’t be able to buy so much as a litre of milk without establishing that you’re from regional Victoria,” he said.
