Victoria’s state of emergency could be extended for up to another 12 months, Premier Daniel Andrews has said, after the state recorded its lowest number of new cases in seven weeks.
Victoria recorded 116 new cases of coronavirus in the last day, the lowest increase in seven weeks, and 15 more people have died, all of them in aged care.
However, the Premier says Victoria will need to extend its state of emergency provisions for a year.
He stressed the state of emergency extension was not the same as the state of disaster, and that he was not proposing stage four measures such as the 8pm curfew be extended.
Mr Andrews said the state of emergency being extended would prolong "common-sense" rules such as wearing face masks and social distancing measures, which he said had driven down transmission numbers.
"We’ve got to protect public health, there can be no economic rebuilding until we fix this problem," he said.
"That’s what these rules are for, nothing more, nothing less," he said.
He said the most logical and prudent thing to do was to ensure the rules aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus would still be in place after September 13.
"I think we are going to engage with all parties in the Victorian Parliament quite soon to talk about those changes and hopefully we can both have a very important agreement about how and when the Parliament sits and then we can have an orderly process to make those necessary changes," Mr Andrews said.
The number of new cases in a day has not been this low since July 5, when there were 74 new cases, nine public housing towers in Melbourne’s north had just entered hard lockdown and the metropolitan region was just days away from the reintroduction of stage three 'stay-at-home' restrictions.
Stage four restrictions came into effect in Melbourne on August 2.
Figures are also lower now in the seven-day average, which takes into account new cases each day over the past week. This average has now dropped below 200 for the first time in more than a month.
It is sitting at 195 - the last time the seven-day average was below 200 was back on July 12.
Three weeks ago the seven-day average was just above 500.
All 15 of the people who died in the past day were connected with aged care, Premier Daniel Andrews said.
They include three women and five men in their 80s, four women and two men in their 90s and one woman in her 100s.
Victoria's death toll from the virus is now 430.
A total of 629 people are now in hospital because of the virus, including 31 in intensive care and 17 on ventilators.
Deakin University epidemiology chair Catherine Bennett said the numbers in Victoria over the past few days had been "extremely reassuring".
Professor Bennett said on Monday the reproductive factor was at 0.5, based on her calculations.
That suggests that every 10 people who have the virus are infecting five other people, which will cause new infections to slow down.
"If we keep this up we might get back to double figures soon," she said.
The 0.5 reproductive factor value was a target, "but that is probably unlikely to stay as it will be hard to suppress the last cases," she said.
"We’ve taken out the big new outbreaks, we’ve cleared up most of the old outbreaks, we are reducing community transmission, but there could be some hard work to come."
Professor Bennett also warned against complacency in light of today’s figures, as there were still four or five new outbreaks occurring each day in Victoria. "All you need is one person to go to work and infect 20 people at the office and it will bump up the numbers that day," she said.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has said he is confident the trend is continuing downwards, though new daily case numbers were unlikely to reach single digits by the end of Melbourne's stage four restrictions on September 13.
At least 99 per cent of all cases in Victoria's second deadly COVID-19 wave have been linked back to infection control breaches at two Melbourne quarantine hotels.
Two more security guards will front the state's hotel quarantine inquiry today as the second week of hearings gets underway. Another returned traveller will also talk about their time in a quarantine hotel.
More to come
Craig Butt joined The Age in 2011 and specialises in data-driven journalism.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMieGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWFnZS5jb20uYXUvbmF0aW9uYWwvdmljdG9yaWEvdmljdG9yaWEtcmVjb3Jkcy0xMTYtbmV3LWNhc2VzLW9mLWNvcm9uYXZpcnVzLTE1LWRlYXRocy0yMDIwMDgyNC1wNTVvbTYuaHRtbNIBeGh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLnRoZWFnZS5jb20uYXUvbmF0aW9uYWwvdmljdG9yaWEvdmljdG9yaWEtcmVjb3Jkcy0xMTYtbmV3LWNhc2VzLW9mLWNvcm9uYXZpcnVzLTE1LWRlYXRocy0yMDIwMDgyNC1wNTVvbTYuaHRtbA?oc=5
2020-08-23 22:55:00Z
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