A step forward: Business and tourism leaders welcome easing of coronavirus restrictions

LIMITED household visits are now allowed and hospitality venues can host as many as 110 patrons in the latest easing of coronavirurs restrictions in regional Victoria.

Geelong’s business and tourism leaders have welcomed the changes – which go beyond the Third Step on the state’s coronavirus roadmap – announced by Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday.

As of Monday this week, these new rules apply in regional Victoria:

• Once per day, people will be able to host two adults and their dependents from the same household at their home (instead of the previous “household bubble” arrangements)
• Hospitality venues can increase their capacity to 70 people outside and 40 people inside (up from 20 inside and 50 outside)
• Outdoor religious gatherings will increase to 20 people
• Indoor pools will open for people 18 and under to a maximum of 20 people. One-on-one hydrotherapy with health professionals will also be allowed
• Libraries and toy libraries will reopen to a maximum of 20 people – libraries in the Geelong Regional Libraries network will open on Monday, October 26
• Households will now be able to visit a care facility, rather than one person visiting at a time.

Further changes will come into effect in less than two weeks. From 11.59pm on November 1, non-contact indoor recreation such as dance classes will be allowed for people under 18.

The lifting of capacity in hospitality venues comes less than a week before this Saturday’s AFL Grand Final, which would normally see the region’s pubs, cafes and restaurants packed with patrons.

Tourism Greater Geelong and the Bellarine acting executive director Tracey Carter said the industry would take full advantage of the extra capacity.

“I think businesses who are savvy and have the suitable infrastructure will move quickly and might have a very busy weekend, especially with a Cats appearance! They’ve had a good few weeks of getting their processes and staff across the new regulations, so now extending the space, if they have it, should be pretty straightforward.

“Especially for the Grand Final, we can still only have one other family in our home, so any kind of atmospheric experience on Saturday will be at a venue.”

Mr Andrews said the “ring of steel” around Melbourne would remain in place, with more checkpoints and more cars to be checked.

Geelong Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer Ben Flynn said the changes were “a good step forward” but the “ring of steel” was still preventing people from Melbourne, which made up about 80 per cent of the market for the tourism and hospitality industries, from reaching Geelong, the Bellarine and the Surf Coast.

He said he hoped some gatherings (with appropriate social distancing) would be allowed soon, for the benefit of the arts sector.

“The Geelong Arts Centre, for example, has been closed since March, and those artists are not supported by any government funding, and that’s really tough, but it’s so important to the fabric of our society as well.”