States view Victoria’s reaction after spike in COVID-19 cases

SOME states have flagged they will look closely at Victoria as they consider further easing of restrictions, including reopening borders, after the state recorded a spike in COVID-19 cases over the past week.

Deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth says there would be some increases in cases and that restrictions would need to continue until a vaccine for the virus is found.

But he said what was happening in Victoria shouldn’t stop other states from going ahead with their plans to ease their own restrictions, because the virus situation was different in each jurisdiction.

Some state premiers are showing uneasiness after Victoria was forced to reimpose some COVID-19 restrictions and delay planned ones for three weeks after recording double-digit increases in cases for five days in a row.

Victoria confirmed another 19 cases yesterday, making a total of 160 new cases in the past week, up from 35 the previous week.

“It is a timely reminder that in a population that is not immune to the virus … we will get, from time to time, outbreaks and clusters as we have seen in Victoria,” Dr Coatsworth said.

“Importantly as well, for those states where restrictions are lifting, that doesn’t imply a lifting of our personal behaviour standards that we have become so used to.”

Some states, including Queensland, have indicated they could retain their tough stance against interstate travel as a result of the new spike in cases in Victoria.

Queensland has declared metropolitan Melbourne a hot spot, and anyone coming from those areas would need to quarantine for two weeks if they entered the state. Queensland stopped non-essential interstate travel in late March and is expected to end that on July 10.

“The last thing we want to do is lift the borders, have lots of people come here for school holidays, spread coronavirus in our state, and then force us to go backwards on restrictions,” Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles said.

“Clearly what’s happening in Victoria will be a matter we will need to take into account in those considerations.”

Dr Coatsworth said state and territory governments needed to make their decisions on restrictions based on their local epidemiology.

“So it would be unreasonable for WA or Northern Territory or, indeed, Queensland at the moment to be making decisions on their restrictions necessarily with a close eye on what’s going on in Victoria because their epidemiology is different,” Dr Coatsworth said.

Federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the Victorian clusters should not stop other states reopening their borders as soon as possible.