Victorians have copped stricter restrictions ahead of New Year’s Eve celebrations tonight amid the new outbreak in Melbourne.
In a press conference on Thursday morning, Victorian Acting Premier Jacinta Allan announced a number of new restrictions to (hopefully) help minimise the spread of coronavirus following the growing NSW outbreak.
From 5pm on New Years Even, Victorians will be able to have a maximum of 15 people gathering in a private residence, down from 30 people previously.
Unfortunately, this means that if you’ve already organised a party, you’ll have to choose your favourite 15 friends and tell the rest of ’em to get stuffed.
“If you are planning a party tonight, you will need to reduce your numbers from the 30 down to 15,” Allan said in a press conference on Thursday.
“We do apologise to people who have put plans in place, who was looking forward to having events in their home, or in other people’s homes, but this is a necessary step, it is on the advice that we have received overnight, of the new cases, and the exposure sites, and we do need to take the steps to keep Victorians safer.”
Additionally, from 5pm tonight (December 31, 2020), masks will be mandatory inside (again).
Obviously, this is unfortunate for all of us planning on getting on the New Years Eve beers with our mates, but it’s of utmost importance that all Victorians do the bloody right thing so we don’t kick off 2021 with another outbreak that sends us back into a lockdown.
In (somewhat) good news, the outbreak in Victoria has been able to be traced back to an event at the Smile Buffalo Thai Restaurant on December 21. Anyone who attended the restaurant on this date is urged to get tested as soon as humanly possible, isolate until they return a negative result *and* contact the DHHS to flag themselves as a close contact.
It is unclear how long the new restrictions will be in place for.
More to come.
