If you – person living in Victoria – are going to tune into just one presser this week, let it be Wednesday’s because Premier Daniel Andrews will announce what “case thresholds” the state will need to reach in order to ease the restrictions we’re currently under.
During his Tuesday presser, Andrews made it very, very clear that case numbers are currently too high to end lockdown this week. However, he and your mum’s favourite chief health officer Brett Sutton are in the final stages of planning our way out of this current mess, pending low case numbers.
“If we can’t achieve zero, despite our best efforts, how many cases can we tolerate?” Andrews told reporters this morning. “It will need to be a low number. It cannot be in the hundreds because it won’t be in the hundreds for long. It will race and get away from us.”
“Then, based on those thresholds and those low case numbers, we will make further announcements about things that can be eased.
“Those announcements will be made tomorrow.”
Andrews also made it very, very clear that the subsequent announcements about restrictions easing does not mean freedom day.
“We’re looking at all manner of different things we might be able to do but I do want to be very clear with the people of Victoria. This will not be freedom day, it will not be an opening up type day,” he said.
“It will be modest changes that hopefully can be meaningful in people’s lives, as much economic activity as is possible, but they will be very modest changes because there is no middle ground here.”
Andrews added that with the way things are going, it’s either “very low numbers or very, very high numbers until we can get people vaccinated.”
To conclude: on Wednesday, Andrews will announce the low number we can cope with – and live with – as well as the easing that we will be able to do over the coming weeks.
“That will hopefully provide people with as much clarity as we can provide,” Andrews said.
Victoria recorded 76 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 overnight, from 50,848 test results.
