RETAIL and hospitality workers are breathing easier and brimming with smiles after crippling COVID-19 mask and close contact isolation rules eased in Victoria and New South Wales last week.
Most restrictions were eased on Friday as the peak of the Omicron wave begins to subside and with almost 70 per cent of adults now armed with their third vaccine dose.
A number of critical and common-sense settings will be retained, including the essential requirement to isolate for seven days following a COVID-19 diagnosis and existing two-dose and three-dose vaccination mandates for workers.
Visitor restrictions in care facilities will be retained to protect the vulnerable.
Aged care residents can currently have up to five visitors per day if each shows a negative rapid antigen test result – or two visitors if no test results are provided.
Face coverings will still be required on public transport and at airports – excluding airport workers who aren’t public-facing – and in sensitive health, aged care and justice settings.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said the Government would continue to provide free RAT kits in education settings and to people living with a disability.
Mr Foley said modelling had shown that Victoria was past the peak of its latest Omicron surge.
“We are able to look to this group of sensible measures being able to take us into a still-challenging winter.”
Mr Foley warned that Victorians could not afford to be complacent about more traditional illnesses with the onset of colder weather.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said it was a significant day for all Victorians and that health policy was pivoting towards individual discretion.
Professor Sutton said the high vaccination rates contributed to the easing of restrictions and that mandates for booster doses would remain in place in critical industries.
More than two thirds of Victorians over 16 have had a booster shot, while 94.5 per cent of Victorians over 12 have had two doses.
