Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says it’s still too early to know whether the state will emerge from lockdown as planned.
Authorities have been optimistic in recent days that the state’s fifth lockdown will end at 11.59pm on Tuesday, citing a downward trend in the number of people in the community while infectious.
Victoria recorded 11 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Sunday, all of which were linked to known outbreaks and were in quarantine for their entire infectious period.
It brings the total number of active cases in the state to 179, of which 17 are in hospital including two people in intensive care.
Mr Andrews said the state’s strategy was working but authorities wanted more testing data before deciding if the lockdown will end on time.
“These numbers are the trend that we wanted to see, these numbers are more than promising, but we just have to wait and see what comes through tomorrow and Tuesday to be certain that we can ease restrictions,” he told reporters on Sunday.
“I will foreshadow, there will still be rules after midnight Tuesday, it’ll be important that we all follow them.”
There are more than 22,000 people self-isolating across the state after being deemed close contacts of positive cases, while there are more than 380 exposure sites.
Thousands of those close contacts are in the process of being cleared after a day 13 negative test, the state’s COVID-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar said.
He said a “small minority”, however, were testing positive late in their quarantine period.
“But it is an important minority because that is how these dying embers catch fire again,” Mr Weimar said.
“The risk for us is that we do all the hard work, we get the thing under control and we leave some dying embers out there. We have to get them completely doused down before we open up again.”
Mr Andrews expressed his dismay at anti-lockdown protesters who gathered in Melbourne on Saturday but said he was reasonably confident it would not become a super-spreader event.
“We don’t want to see people out and about selfishly putting their point of view ahead of the health and wellbeing of others,” he said.
“Everybody is entitled to an opinion but you’re not entitled to put other people in danger and that’s what yesterday was about. Ultimately, selfish behaviour that puts many other people in real danger.”
Mr Weimar described protesters as a “small minority having a self-indulgent tantrum”.
The premier said it had been a difficult task to shut down the mass gathering without that in itself becoming an infection control nightmare.
“People understand that Victoria Police did their very best,” he said.
“But you know, we can’t vaccinate against selfishness and these people should be ashamed. Absolutely ashamed. It’s just wrong.”
Fines were issued to 73 people as a result of the action. Police are reviewing hundreds of hours of footage from social media, CCTV and body-worn cameras and more fines will follow.
VICTORIA’S 11 NEW COVID-19 CASES:
* Four linked to Ms Frankie restaurant (three patrons and one household contact)
* Three linked to Trinity Grammar (one student, one parent and one household contact)
* One linked to Bacchus Marsh Grammar (household contact)
* One linked to the West Gate Tunnel (household contact)
* One linked to Young and Jackson (household contact)
* One linked to AAMI Park (household contact)
AAP
