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Saturday, February 8, 2025

Andrews: “We simply can’t open up as quickly as everyone would like us to”

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has defended the state’s decision to continue Stage 4 COVID restrictions in an attempt to contain the state’s deadly outbreak.

Professor Brett Sutton said Stage 4 measures had been successful in driving down COVID-19 transmission rates.

“Obviously the principles of getting that effective reproduction down as low as possible and driving transmission down to levels where we know that we can sustain in the long term is something that has been spoken of at AHPPC,” said Prof Sutton.

“I’ll be updating them in a couple of hours on the roadmap to talk through it and to have reflections from them in terms of how they see it and any other advice they’d give.”

In the past 24 hours, the state has recorded 41 new coronavirus cases, and a further nine deaths – with 8 linked to aged care facilities.

Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews has defended the continuing lockdown, saying the state didn’t have “the luxury of letting our frustration get the better of us”.

He said he was proud of how Victorians were coping with the public health restrictions.

“To go from 725 cases to 41 cases in a month, that demonstrates that this strategy is working – the sacrifices that we are making, all of us, are worth something,” the Premier said.

“I want that to count and that’s why we simply can’t open up as quickly as everyone would like us to.”

Of the 1,781 active cases in Victoria, 873 are linked to aged care facilities.

Daniel Andrews said there were currently outbreaks in 93 aged care homes.

“There has been some stability come to residential aged care and we’re very pleased that everyone is working together to drive those numbers down to as low as they can be, given the underlying vulnerability of so many residents in those settings,” Mr Andrews said.

Today’s recorded deaths include one female and three males aged in their 80s; one female and three males in their 90s and one female in her 70s.

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