By Ewen McRae
Active cases of coronavirus continue to fall in Melton and Moorabool.
Moorabool had zero active cases of the virus on October 4, while Melton also improved their overall numbers with just 21 active cases on the same date.
The news came as premier Dan Andrews implored Victorians to continue following the lockdown rules as hundreds of people flocked to beaches over the warm weekend.
“We’ve just got to stay the course on this. The trend is with us, the numbers are coming down, once we get them low, we can keep them low and we can open up again,” Mr Andrews said.
“And if you want to spend summer at the beach, then that will be the time to do that. If we don’t do anything silly or anything selfish right now.”
Mr Andrews also did not confirm whether the 5km radius rule would be wound back on October 19.
“Those rules serve a really important purpose and they’ll be in place as long as that purpose is relevant and proportionate,” he said.
“There’ll be a time when that can come off, but exactly when that is, or might be extended, when that is, we can’t be certain now.”
It comes as thousands of students prepare to return to on-site learning next week.
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said schools were now able to open safely.
“We’ve gotten to a point where the levels of transmission in the community now are so low that that makes schools, really, a very safe place to go,” he said.
“It does mean that you can still get a community case who turns up in school, but we’ve got a really good program to minimise the risk of transmission within that school setting.
“Overall, we just need to make sure that it’s not just a case of back to normal at school, but all of those things we’ve been working very closely with the Department of Education around, like ventilation, and making sure that anyone who is unwell and who has symptoms doesn’t come to school.”
