PREMIER Daniel Andrews says the state's roadmap may be overlooked so COVID-19 restrictions can be eased further in regional Victoria.
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"We had originally forecast to try and keep Melbourne and regional Victoria as closely aligned as possible, because that then means you can get rid of that border and you can have more freedom of movement," Mr Andrews told regional media today.
"If Melbourne is more stubborn than we had thought, we will give a very detailed consideration to regional Victoria, perhaps, taking some further small steps, so that we can continue to have activity and jobs and better sense of recovery in regional Victoria, we won't have them held back by some of the challenges we've faced in Melbourne.
"But that's not for today, and it's not even for next week, that'll be something that's under constant review on the data and the doctors and the science will drive us in all that.
"We certainly don't rule out in fact we are actively looking at whether there might be other options for regional Victoria to push further ahead of Melbourne."
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To progress to the next step of the roadmap, there must be no new cases across the state for 14 days, but Mr Andrews said that number was just a formal metric.
We don't necessarily need to have no new cases for 14 days statewide for say regional Victoria to take the next step.
- Premier Daniel Andrews
"If raising that precondition would mean that regional Victoria could progress, and numbers were still very low, we would look at it and we are looking at whether there might be another step for regional Victoria to take."
He thanked everyone across regional Victoria for doing the right thing and said it was about holding on for a few more weeks to see the second wave defeated.
He said Kilmore was the perfect example of how the virus could spread into a regional Victorian postcode that had not had a positive case for weeks.
There was a new case in Kilmore recorded overnight.
"The Kilmore example speaks directly to someone who was actually allowed to travel into regional Victoria but did so, and unknowingly did so with this virus and suddenly we've got literally hundreds of people locked in their homes in that particular community so the virus doesn't discriminate between postcodes, and at all.
"If you were to open up more broadly, and that ring of steel was not there, at this stage we know exactly what that would mean.
"As soon as we can map out what any potential future stages look like and timing around that, we absolutely will but safety first, because we don't want to fritter away all the good work that regional Victoria, both families, communities and businesses, have done."
Department of Health and Human Services testing lead Jeroen Weimar said there were now 37 wastewater sampling sties across Victoria.
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