Victorian lockdown ending tonight as state records no new cases

Victorian lockdown ending tonight as state records no new cases

With no new cases recorded in Victoria overnight, the state's Premier Daniel Andrews has announced the five-day "circuit-breaker" lockdown will end tonight.

As such, from 11.59pm AEDT today, most of the harsh restrictions will fall away with Victoria essentially returning to pre-lockdown rules.

Victorians will be allowed to leave the house for any reason and can travel anywhere they like within the state as the 5km bubble rule is removed.

However, masks will still be required to be worn indoors, and outdoors where physical distancing is not possible.

Households will be permitted to have five visitors at any one time, and schools will reopen tomorrow.

Public and private sector workers can return to the office with 50 per cent allowed on site.

Retail and hospitality can resume with the same density limits that were applied pre-lockdown.

The same goes for religious gatherings, weddings, and funerals, which must abide by location-specific density limits.

Sport can resume, and entertainment will also restart with capacity limits in place

Andrews said the next nine days will be vital to ensure the current Holiday Inn outbreak remains under control.

"There are still nine days to go for the 14-day period of the last of the positive cases," Andrews said.

"Next Friday we'll be able to be even more definitive about the epidemiological picture across the state.

"And that means that whilst we can revert to almost all of the settings that applied last Friday, our COVID-safe Summer settings, there are some exceptions."

The news comes as Victoria reports no new locally transmitted cases of COVID-19, and none in hotel quarantine.

These good results came from 39,258 test results the biggest single day of testing that Victoria has done throughout the pandemic.

"To see so many people go and get tested is proof that we know what to do, we stick together, there's great community spirit and its really acknowledgement that this is a shared challenge," said Andrews.

Updated at 10.57am AEDT on 17 February 2021.

 

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