Victoria’s regional regions will again go into lockdown from 1pm today due to the Covid-19 Delta variant case numbers rising in the state. This will mean that ski resorts will again close in the alpine regions. The fourth time this winter.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has declared that all metropolitan Melbourne restrictions – except for the curfew – will be implemented across regional Victoria from 1pm today until 11.59pm Thursday, 2 September.
This means that in regional Victoria there will be only five reasons to leave your home: to get the food and the supplies you need, to exercise for up to two hours no more than 5km from your home, for care or caregiving, authorised work or education if you can’t do it from home, or to get vaccinated at the nearest possible location.
Face masks will still be mandatory outdoors and indoors (not at home) unless an exception applies – this includes all workplaces, and secondary schools. To give industry time to adjust, workforce permits will be required to leave the house for authorised work from 11.59pm Monday 23 August.
Playgrounds, basketball hoops, skate parks and outdoor exercise equipment will be closed. Masks will also not be able to be removed to drink alcoholic beverages. Exercise will be limited to just one other person, plus dependants if they can’t be left at home.
Because of high rate of transmission in young people and the number of childcare centres now designated as exposure sites, all childcare centres across Victoria will be closed except to children whose parents are authorised workers and cannot be supervised at home. Vulnerable children can still attend. A permit system will apply, and further details will be available soon.
Victoria’s public health team are also strongly recommending that primary school aged children, when they are not at home, also wear a mask as an extra precaution against this virus.
Further, changes will be made to metropolitan businesses operating in high-risk industries – like abattoirs, meat, poultry and seafood processing – with additional obligations such as workforce limits and mandatory surveillance testing to be implemented.
