The premier said that even though health officials weren’t tracking people’s movements at the moment, ‘that doesn’t mean we won’t contact trace in the future’.
‘But, utimately, it’s just the simplest and easiest thing to do to validate that you are vaccinated and that you are allowed to be at the pub or in the restaurant,’ he said.
‘If it’s a (vaccinated) economy setting (where you) have to be vaccinated, then you continue to check in.’
Key industries like meat processing and supply chains where staff were required to be regularly tested for Covid will no longer have to.
‘These mandates will be become recommended-only, reflecting declining community transmission,’ Mr Andrews said.
‘Requirements for hospital worker bubbles will also be removed, but health services may still implement them at their discretion.’
International travellers will no longer need an arrivals permit through Service Victoria and unvaccinated passengers only need to do seven days of hotel quarantine.
Health Minister Martin Foley will ‘consider’ removing the recommendation for Victorians to work from home, and allowing office workers to remove masks.
‘I am confident that you will see us here again next week, confirming the arrangements around masks,’ he said.
Mr Andrews said he hoped Victorians would be back in the office by next Friday, and all public service staff would be working at least three days a week.
From February 25, face masks will be scrapped in all indoor settings, apart from public transport and a few other exceptions including hospitals (pictured, a venue in Sydney)
NSW and Victoria have coordinated their Covid response after premier Dominic Perrottet ascended to the top job last year (pictured, Sydneysiders swim at Clovelly Beach)
‘We’re confident that we’ll be able to get to a situation next Friday where masks are off in the office and the advice changes… people will then be free and in fact we’ll be encouraging them to go back to the office,’ he told reporters.
‘We always said these measures wouldn’t be in place for a minute longer than they are needed, and with hospitalisation numbers decreasing and less pressure on our health system, now is a sensible time to make changes,’ Mr Andrews said.
‘We’re grateful to everyone who has been doing the right thing, helping to reduce the impact of this virus on the community, our healthcare system and our economy.’
He warned restrictions could be brought back in if a new variant emerged, which was a significant possibility.
Mr Foley said abandoning check-in for shops and schools would allow health staff to focus on the highest-risk settings most likely to generate super-spreader events.
His NSW counterpart Dr Kerry Chant (pictured on Thursday) said it was time to talk about what Covid would look like in 2022 with the state to prepare and plan for new variants
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said 2022 would be a year of ‘recalibration’ with the state to begin to prepare and plan for new variants.
Dr Chant said people should expect the rollout of additional doses of the vaccine with new outbreaks likely as immunity from infections and vaccines wane.
‘There will likely be further wave of Covid as vaccine and infection-derived immunity wanes,’ she said. ‘We need to be clear about this. Even in the context of no new variants emerging, we can expect further waves.’
‘At the moment, we’ve seen a stabilisation of numbers with slowly declining hospital and ICU admissions.’
The top doctor will take her longest break since the pandemic began as the state plans to lift the bulk of its Covid restrictions by the end of the month.
NSW recorded 9,995 new cases on Thursday, as Victoria detected 8,501 infections.
