Coronavirus Australia live news: Victorians authorities meet to discuss snap lockdown - ABC News

By Sian Johnson

There have been some mixed signals from the state government about what might happen if we shift out of stage four restrictions tomorrow, but it's clear the rules are unlikely to return to last week's settings straight away.

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Tuesday unexpected positive cases of the virus emerging could quickly change things.

"I'm most concerned about the thing that comes completely out of left-field, that we suddenly see a community case without links to our known cases," he said.

At the start of the week when he was questioned about what might come next if things continued along the same trajectory, Professor Sutton made reference to similar short lockdowns in Perth and Brisbane, where "they haven't gone back to the settings" that were in place before quarantine breaches.

On Tuesday, the Premier made it clear rules would be in place for home visitors and mask-wearing would continue, even if we moved out of the hard lockdown.

"We'll still have to get tested if we have symptoms, we'll still have to wear masks in a number of settings, there will still be limits to the number of people that can come to your home - all those settings that have served us well," Mr Andrews said.

"We're looking to get back to as close to what that resting COVID normal was as we can, but we have to do it safely."

Epidemiologist Nancy Baxter, who heads the University of Melbourne's School of Population and Global Health, said it would be ideal for contact tracers to have a bit more time to ensure the virus had not spread further.

"I think they may open up significantly on Wednesday night, but not fully," she said.

"So opening up schools and things like that but not increasing the number of people you can have at your home to 15."

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2021-02-16 20:38:00Z
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