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Two weeks out from the school holidays, health authorities are refusing to commit to which coronavirus restrictions will be eased and interstate tourism bodies are warning of more losses brought on by the uncertainty around Victoria’s continuing lockdown.
Victorian tourism operators are looking forward to an influx of visitors once Melbourne removes its 25-kilometre travel restriction as many anxious holidaymakers are expected to forgo their traditional winter Queensland break because of booking uncertainty.
Shoppers with masks at South Melbourne Market yesterday as Melbourne’s COVID-19 restrictions continued. Credit:Wayne Taylor
Tourism and Transport Forum chief executive Margy Osmond said Queensland would be most affected by Melbourne’s travel restrictions in the school holidays, while NSW bore the brunt of the lack of Queen’s Birthday long-weekend travel.
“People get all disturbed about whether borders will close, whether there’ll be additional complications, and it is an active dampener on their willingness to continue forward with anything they may have booked, or to book anything coming up.”
Ms Osmond said given how many lockdowns Victoria had had, and the uncertainty of how other states would respond, it was “entirely likely” many Victorians would choose not to book a trip for the school holidays.
Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said Victorians supplied up to 40 per cent of the state’s annual tourists before COVID-19, and Melbourne’s travel restrictions were seriously affecting the industry.
Under current restrictions, Melburnians are able to travel interstate only if it’s for a permitted reason such as work or relocating.
Acting Premier James Merlino confirmed the state was on track for a further easing of coronavirus restrictions later this week, but Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton refused to be drawn on what measures would be among the first to be lifted, while Health Minister Martin Foley said a reduction in coronavirus cases could not be seen as “mission accomplished”.
On Sunday the government slightly softened its stance on the testing rate being central to lifting of restrictions, after COVID-19 commander Jeroen Weimar said on Saturday that the state needed about 20,000 tests a day to flush out undetected cases.
Professor Sutton said testing would not be the “be all and end all” but repeated the plea for people to get tested for the mildest of symptoms after testing rates plummeted to about 15,000 a day over the weekend – down from 50,000 in the days Victoria was plunged into its latest lockdown.
He said it was too early to say whether crowds would be allowed at AFL games next weekend but there was a possibility restrictions at matches played in Melbourne would be different to the settings applied to the Cats v Bulldogs game in Geelong.
Home visits also would not necessarily be among restrictions about to be lifted, Professor Sutton said. Visitors are banned in Melbourne and restricted to two a day in regional Victoria.
“We need to consider what it means as a cumulative risk when people are allowed to move between households, but we also know that people are doing the right thing and they are getting tested early, isolating until they get the negative result,” he said.
Victoria recorded one new coronavirus case on Sunday, a primary close contact linked to the Maidstone Arcare aged care outbreak who tested positive on their day-13 test. The person is not a resident of the facility.
“This case in quarantine is a good thing but cannot be taken as mission accomplished,” Health Minister Mr Foley said.
Mr Gschwind said there was hope in the Queensland tourist industry that the Victorian government would lift travel restrictions before school holidays started on June 26.
“Every time there is a border closure anywhere, it takes consumer confidence back a notch,” he said.
People had become accustomed to making bookings at the last minute, as restrictions changed.
“We’ve seen so many fluctuations in the last 16 months since COVID was here,” he said. “Sometimes bookings pick up very quickly, as soon as borders are open, but they also tend to be cancelled immediately when a border closes. Operators have had to deal with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of fluctuation. It doesn’t make life easy for them.”
Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism chairman Wayne Kayler-Thomson said pent-up demand from Melburnians would drive an increase in coastal holidays once restrictions were lifted on the city.
Mr Kayler-Thomson said he had heard of Victorians being reluctant to travel interstate due to concerns about snap border closures and changes to restrictions.
While there would still be many heading north if allowed, he said Victorian operators were also hoping to benefit: “I expect if [Melbourne] does open up it will be very busy.”
The state delivered 14,390 vaccine doses on Saturday. The government said on Sunday it would prioritise people who had received the first dose of their Pfizer vaccine to get their second jab, following complaints from frustrated Victorians unable to book a second appointment.
COVID-19 commander Mr Weimar said there were 1000 staff answering calls on the state’s coronavirus hotline. He reassured Victorians they would be able to contact the hotline, which buckled under a deluge of calls a fortnight ago.
The Commonwealth has promised Victoria will receive about 95,000 Pfizer doses a week for at least the next three weeks, Mr Weimar said.
As of Sunday, there were fewer than 2000 primary close contacts in isolation, with 6400 contacts cleared and released from their two-week quarantine after returning negative results on day-13 tests.
The government was waiting for the genomic results of a man in his 30s who tested positive to the Kappa variant of the virus on Saturday.
Professor Sutton said his team had uncovered “moderately established links” with most of the mystery cases detected in the state’s current outbreak, and that the real mystery was how case 5 in the Wollert-linked outbreak – believed to be the index case – and a Maidstone Arcare aged care worker contracted the virus.
“Most others have lines of investigation which haven’t been tied in full but pretty clearly linked with all likelihood to existing cases,” Professor Sutton said.
“We’ve had six cases that we’ve been unable to find the source for, even though we know where it came from weeks ago.”
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