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Gathering limits have eased and mask-wearing rules have loosened under new restrictions in Victoria that public health experts and business leaders expect will mark the first of a series of uninterrupted steps back towards regular life.
Encouraged by the start of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout and the effectiveness of Victoria’s contact tracing system against the test of another hotel quarantine breach, Deakin University chair of epidemiology Catherine Bennett said any retightening of restrictions should not be necessary –let alone another lockdown.
Premier Daniel Andrews struck a cautiously optimistic tone on Friday, two weeks after announcing a five-day lockdown.
Coronavirus Victoria: Mask easing marks start of path to a normal life, experts say smh.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from smh.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg were publicly campaigning for one. Restaurant and cafe owners were desperate, as were people who’d been cut off from friends and family for two months.
Thompson was a member of a Melbourne University research team, led by epidemiologist Tony Blakely, asked to provide scientific modelling to help inform the government’s exit strategy. The modelling didn’t tell the government what it should do but provided a series of projections about the risk of a further epidemic before Christmas.
The most important variable in the modelling – essentially a political one – was how far the government was willing to push case numbers down before it allowed things to reopen. Although Andrews didn’t say it out loud at his press conference, it was clear to Thompson as he drove from his Castlemaine home to Bendigo that the government had decided to go all-in; it planned to eliminate the virus.