Victorian authorities have warned they could make it harder for residents to return home from outbreak zones if people continue to breach quarantine orders once they arrive in the state.
Key points:
- The Acting Chief Health Officer says three people visited on Monday are thought to have intentionally breached a stay-at-home requirement
- The COVID-19 response commander warns authorities "won't have any choice" but to prevent people returning home if the orders continue to be breached
- An announcement on restrictions is expected on Thursday
Victoria recorded its sixth day in a row without a new locally acquired case of COVID-19, with the focus now primarily on the risk of virus entering the community from interstate outbreaks.
Under the state's traffic light border permit system, local government areas (LGAs) around Sydney remain red zones, along with the Queensland LGAs of City of Brisbane, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast.
Victorians can return home on a red zone permit, but must spend 14 days in quarantine when they return.
Acting Chief Health Officer Daniel O'Brien said there were 321 home visits conducted on Monday, 288 of which were to the homes of red zone permit holders.
"Pleasingly, there was strong compliance across the board, but we did identify three of those 321 people that we believe were intentionally not isolating," he said.
The three people will be referred to police if investigations find they were intentionally breaching the conditions of the permit.
Dr O'Brien said the state wanted people to be able to come back home "but the system just won't work if people don't isolate".
"We just can't be taking a risk when there is a real potential for some of these people to bring the virus back into our community and lose all the gains that our hard work so far has gained," he said.
ABC News: Danielle Bonica
)A number of other areas are classed as orange zones, including Perth, Townsville, the Gold Coast, Alice Springs, Greater Darwin, the ACT and LGAs across regional New South Wales.
People who have been in orange zones must get tested on arrival into Victoria and quarantine until they receive a negative result.
"Looking interstate, we continue to advise Victorians not to travel to orange or red zones," Dr O'Brien said.
"And there remains a risk you may be exposed to the virus or be required to quarantine for 14 days on your return."
There were more than 3,300 orange zone permits processed on Monday, and 502 red zone permits.
ABC News: Danielle Bonica
)In recent days, authorities have provided updates about a small number of other people also found to not be quarantining when they should be.
COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said it was "hugely frustrating", saying it was "not unreasonable" for people to follow the rules.
"If you're coming out of a red zone, recognising the over 400 exposure sites in Sydney, still significant cases of COVID running around in Brisbane, we're bringing you right back into a state that we think has no community transmission at this point in time," Mr Weimar said.
"We need you to isolate for those 14 days and to work with us and to protect the rest of the community.
"Because otherwise, we won't have any choice but to not allow people to come back home, and that's the last thing we want to do."
When Victoria shut the border to New South Wales over the new year period, residents were locked out of home, causing chaos for thousands of people.
The state processed 22,149 test results on Monday and detected two overseas-acquired cases in hotel quarantine.
There were 15,451 vaccine doses administered at state-run sites.
Authorities are expected to make an announcement on Thursday about the next step out of restrictions imposed to deal with outbreaks of the Kappa and Delta variants.
About 70 per cent of the primary close contacts associated with the Sandringham outbreak have been cleared, and the close contacts associated with a Virgin flight attendant will start being released later this week.
Six contacts from the Northern Territory Tanami mine cluster remain in quarantine.
The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants to see an easing of the rule requiring masks to be worn at indoor workplaces, but Dr O'Brien has said they remained a useful "safety blanket" against transmission.
The public health advisory group met on Monday to discuss whether capacity at cinemas and theatres could be boosted.
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Victoria records no new local COVID-19 cases amid warning about red zone quarantine - ABC News
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