Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, announced today that with Victoria set to hit the 90 per cent double dose milestone for eligible people in the coming days, the Acting Chief Health Officer has determined that almost all remaining restrictions in Victoria will ease from 11:59pm Thursday 18 November – reaching Phase D of the National Plan.
This means that there will be changes to the restrictions on seeing family and friends; work, education and childcare; fitness; weddings, funerals and worship; going out; travel and getting goods and services. You can see those changes here:
The vaccinated economy will remain, as will masks in some high risk settings – as both are important in reducing risk as we get back to normal. This means meany places will be off limits to those who are not vaccinated.
What does this mean for Disability Providers?
The Government announced the directions for the operation of disability day support services on 3 November and we have been working with families to ensure a smooth transition back on site for Day Services at 773 and in our hubs, while working with the additional consideration of supporting both participants who have been vaccinated, and who have not. This will add some complexity to support arrangements, and we are grateful to our staff and families who are working through this next phase of COVIDSafe guidelines.
The current guidelines require providers to continue to maintain density limits, including workers, of one person per two square metres in both indoor and outdoor areas.
Service providers must maintain COVIDSafe plans and, when delivering participant-facing supports should:
- strongly encourage all participants and visitors to be fully vaccinated
- ensure everyone wears a mask when indoors, unless they have an exemption
- encourage participants to wear a mask outdoors if they cannot physically distance
- all workers must always wear a mask indoors, and outdoors if they cannot physically distance
- ensure staff wear eye protection
The lifting of further restrictions will likely result in additional changes to care directives and we will plan for these changes, when they are received from the Department. Furthermore, we will continue to update our families and participants of these changes as they are known to us.
Once again we thank our families, participants and community for being patient and continuing to show your support through a time of uncertainty.
