Source: ABCnews
Victoria has recorded no new COVID-19 cases after the effective closure of the border with New South Wales and the ACT came into effect last night.
There were 19,239 test results received yesterday, and 12,005 doses of vaccine were administered at state-run sites.
Yesterday, Victoria’s Acting Chief Health Officer announced all of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory would become a red zone under the state’s travel permit system.
The changes came into effect from 11:59pm on Sunday.
It means the Victorian border is effectively closed to New South Wales and the ACT – except for Victorian residents returning on a red zone permit for 14 days of quarantine — and for people with exemptions.
ACT pushes back against restrictions
The Chief Minister of the ACT, Andrew Barr, said he was frustrated by Victoria’s decision to shut its border to Canberrans.
Canberra has not recorded a local COVID-19 case in a year.
Mr Barr has called for all states to remove restrictions on the ACT as soon as possible.
“At this time, there is very little justification to consider the ACT as a COVID affected jurisdiction that requires the highest level of travel restrictions,” he said.
Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett said health authorities were right to wait before making a decision on closing the border.
“It probably would have been too pre-emptive if you closed the borders when you don’t have any signal that you’ve got even exposure sites outside of Sydney, let alone potential cases,” she said.
“The case numbers were still lower than they are in these last couple of days where they’ve really spiked up to 77 cases a day.”
Public transport in the spotlight
Meanwhile, Victorians are being offered an incentive to register their Myki public transport cards to help contact tracers.
From today, the first 60,000 people to register their Myki card will receive a $10 credit.
Public Transport Victoria said it could take up to 40 days for the credit to appear in accounts.
Victoria’s Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Jacinta Allan, said the state government was also close to establishing a QR code system for public transport.
QR codes were made compulsory for all businesses at the end of May, but Ms Allan was forced to defend why it had taken so long for them to be introduced on public transport.
“It’s about making sure we get the rollout right as well,” she said.
“It might look simple popping a QR code on a train station but there is some complexity about making sure the right QR code is on the right location and on the right tram.
“We’re absolutely pedalling really hard now to get those QR codes rolled out. They’re already at 440 priority locations across the state. We’re rolling them out across tram stops, trains, trams and buses.
“There’s tens of thousands of individual rolling stock that they need to be applied to. It’s an important priority.”
