Waking up to the news that Victoria had recorded 1438 new locally acquired cases – bringing the state’s total of active cases to 11,018 – was a shock.
“This is more than a 50 per cent increase on yesterday’s daily numbers,” Premier Daniel Andrews said in a press conference on Thursday morning. But how did we get here?
“We’ve been very clear these numbers would go up,” Andrews said. “They go up faster, of course, if people don’t follow the rules. They go up faster if people are out visiting each other in their homes.”
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SIGN UPFollowing the long weekend, Andrews said unlawful home visits have contributed to the spike in case numbers. “Actual interviews tell us that many hundreds of people, perhaps thousands of people indeed, have made some choices that meant they’re spending time not in their own home, but someone else’s home,” he said.
“Given what we know from interviews in recent days, many of these cases were completely avoidable.”
While he confirmed the state had just achieved its 80 per cent first-vaccination target, he appeal to Victorians to keep following the rules: “I know it’s incredibly hard, I know this has been literally the longest journey, but we can see to the other side now and that’s why it’s so important that we just find it in ourselves to do the right thing.”
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