Regional Victoria will enter lockdown from 1pm today, Saturday 21 August.
The Victorian Government has announced that regional Victoria will enter lockdown from 1pm today, Saturday 21 August.
All metropolitan Melbourne restrictions – excluding the curfew – will be implemented across regional Victoria until 11.59pm Thursday, 2 September.
This is due to the ongoing level of community transmission, the large number of mystery cases and a surge of new cases and exposures sites outside of metropolitan Melbourne.
The construction sector page on coronavirus.vic.gov.au has FAQs on the current restrictions.
For regional Victoria, this means:
- There are only five reasons to leave home: to get the food and the supplies you need, to exercise for up to two hours (no more than 5km from your home), for care or caregiving, authorised work or education if you can't do it from home, or to get vaccinated at the nearest possible location.
- Face masks will still be mandatory outdoors and indoors (not at home) unless an exception applies – this includes all workplaces.
- To give industry time to adjust, workforce permits will be required to leave the house for authorised work from 11.59pm Monday 23 August.
- Workforce limits apply to the construction industry from 1pm today, however industry will be engaged about safely reducing staff numbers as they secure sites.
- Playgrounds, basketball hoops, skate parks and outdoor exercise equipment will be closed.
- Masks will also not be able to be removed to drink alcoholic beverages.
- Exercise will be limited to just one other person, plus dependants if they can't be left at home.
- People cannot have visitors to the home.
Additional restriction changes for metropolitan Melbourne
The curfew of 9pm-5am remains in place in metropolitan Melbourne.
Further, changes will be made to metropolitan businesses operating in high-risk industries – like abattoirs, meat, poultry, and seafood processing – with additional obligations such as workforce limits and mandatory surveillance testing to be implemented.
Closure of childcare and attendance permit system
