Melbourne lifting more pandemic restrictions

Melbourne will begin to loosen COVID-19 restrictions after a record-breaking lockdown. 

People in Victoria state will be able to travel inside its borders and remove their masks outside when the state hits an expected 80 percent vaccination rate on Friday. That rate is expected to reach 90 percent by Nov. 24 for Melbourne’s population of about 5 million people, Reuters reported.

“There’s a fundamental agreement that we have reached with the Victorian community, we asked you to get vaccinated, you have done that in record time and record numbers,” Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, said, according to Reuters.

Andrews added that the state is moving toward a “vaccinated economy” in which only fully vaccinated people will be permitted into venues.

Melbourne, the state’s capital city, endured 262 days of stay-at-home orders, marking the world’s longest COVID-19 lockdown. The lockdown was even longer than the one in Buenos Aires, which last lasted for 234 consecutive days. 

On Sunday, Victoria had 1,935 new COVID-19 cases and 11 deaths, according to Reuters.

“It’s our approach to try and achieve life as close to normal as possible,” Andrews said, adding that he hopes crowds would exceed 80,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the Boxing Day Test on Dec. 26.

Research from the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne showed that less than 7 percent of Australia’s population is unwilling to be vaccinated, Reuters noted.