Under the Victorian Government’s roadmap, regional areas would not enter the next step until there has been no cases statewide for 14 days.
But with regional numbers continuing to stay low – despite the small outbreak from Chadstone which has reached Kilmore – Mr Andrews told a press conference on Thursday a further easing of restrictions could soon take place.
“One thing I will say is that on the roadmap, we had originally forecast to try and keep Melbourne and regional Victoria as closely aligned as possible,” he said.
“Because that means you can get rid of that border and have more freedom of movement.
“But just like the original decision for the third step in regional Victoria we wouldn’t put a date on that because we knew it would come relatively quickly. Therefore, we didn’t have to sub-divide regional Victoria into lots of different zones.
“If Melbourne is more stubborn than we thought, then we will give very detailed consideration to regional Victoria taking some further small steps so we can continue to have activity, jobs and that sense of recovery.
“We don’t want to have that held back by some of the challenges we’re facing in Melbourne.”
But Mr Andrews said the cases in Kilmore were the prime example of why the government would continue to proceed with caution.
“We’ve taken some big steps in regional Victoria and everything is relatively stable considering the freedom of movement and the amount of opening up which has occurred,” he said.
“It speaks to the infectivity of this thing that it starts in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne and can finish up in regional Victoria very, very quickly.
“That is part of the challenge then to be mindful when there are the perfectly understandable calls for us to open regional Victoria further.”
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