Vic won’t water down COVID check-in rules
Callum Godde |
Victoria has no plans to water down its venue check-in requirements, fearing a potential uptick in COVID-19 cases or new variant could mean they need to be reimposed.
Queensland this week scrapped check-ins at venues where proof of vaccination is not required, such as supermarkets, retail outlets, hairdressers and gyms.
But Government Services Minister Danny Pearson said the state didn’t plan to follow Queensland’s lead, adding the system might be needed in future.
“It’s very disruptive for people to ask them to QR code and check in, then potentially say ‘Don’t worry about doing that’ and then having to reimpose those requirements,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
“This infrastructure has played a really important role in keeping us all safe during the course of this pandemic.”
There have been more than a billion QR code check-ins through the Service Victoria app since the system was launched at the end of 2020.
Victorian health authorities are no longer using venue QR code data for contact tracing purposes, with infected people now responsible for alerting their own contacts.
Despite questions about their usefulness, 125 million check-ins have still been recorded since January 1.
Mr Pearson said the state’s check-in codes requirements would remain in place for as long as necessary.
“We know how things can change. Three months ago, none of us had heard of Omicron,” he said.
“None of us thought that Omicron was going to be such a feature. The number of people who were afflicted with Omicron even at the start of December … was a really low number compared to now.”
Victoria recorded a further 21 COVID-related deaths and 9908 new cases on Wednesday, marking the fifth straight day new infections have been under 10,000.
Patent numbers continue to trend down, but the majority (89.1 per cent) of those in hospital have not had a third vaccine dose, including 25 per cent completely unvaccinated.
In intensive care, 92.1 per cent of patients have not had three vaccine doses, the Department of Health says, including 28.9 per cent of patients who are unvaccinated.
Recent genomic testing of about 500 samples from positive COVID-19 cases in the past fortnight has confirmed the Omicron variant as the dominant strain in Victoria, at 97.8 per cent.
In parliament, Victoria’s Legislative Assembly on Wednesday voted in favour to extend the double-dose vaccine mandate for lower house MPs and staff to attend parliament until May.
Liberal MP Neil Angus is not attending parliament because he is not complying with the mandate.
VICTORIA’S LATEST COVID-19 FIGURES:
* Latest deaths: six in the past two days, 13 in the past week, eight historic cases
* Total deaths with COVID: 2219
* Hospital cases: 542, down 33
* ICU cases: 71, down one
* Ventilator cases: 27, down three
* PCR tests processed: 28,160
* Positive PCR tests: 3627
* Positive rapid tests: 6281
* Active cases: 57,022, down 1427
* Vaccine doses administered at state-run sites on Tuesday: 14,929
* Vaccine booster rate for Victorians 18 and over: 46 per cent
AAP
