We’re now even more confident that a bunch of Melbourne’s lockdown restrictions are set to ease on Friday, according to independent reports from The Age, The Herald Sun and the ABC.
From 11:59pm on Thursday, the current 10km travel limit is expected to grow to 25km, cafés and restaurants are expected to open for up to 50 diners, and school students are expected to return to the classroom.
However, other restrictions are expected to stay the same. Those include mandatory masks, a limit of 10 people on outdoor gatherings, and home visitors still being banned.
“The settings are likely to be similar to what happened for regional Victoria last week,” a senior government source told the Herald Sun.
A 25km travel radius is enough to cover most of Melbourne, however weekends away to rural areas won’t be possible over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend.
Reported yesterday: 1 new local case, 0 new cases acquired overseas. Got symptoms? Get tested.
– 19,533 vaccine doses administered
– 28,485 test results received
More later: https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco#COVID19VicData #COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/wc5BUgm6OK— Victorian Department of Health (@VicGovDH) June 8, 2021
All this leaked info gives credence to yesterday’s reports that Victorians were soon to be let out of lockdown.
It actually was never a secret that the government was hoping to ease restrictions, especially given just one new case in the community was recorded yesterday.
“We remain on track to later in this week announce, as we have said we planned to do all along, further easings of restrictions in regional Victoria and careful easings of restrictions in Melbourne,” acting Premier James Merlino told reporters on Tuesday morning.
He added that “nothing about [the cases reported on Tuesday] change our plans.”
Senior cabinet ministers then met that evening, and again on Wednesday morning, to finalise the incoming eased restrictions.
If these reports based on tips from anonymous state government sources are true, the eased restrictions will give Melburnians some extremely well-earned respite after copping it for weeks on end.
Fingers crossed for the long weekend, hey.
