Daniel Andrews announces Victoria will end its Covid-19 state of emergency on Wednesday October 12

Dan Andrews has announced Victoria’s Covid-19 state of emergency will end next week.   

On Friday the Victorian Premier said the state’s pandemic declaration will officially finish on Wednesday October 12.

Melbourne has been in lockdown for 248 days- making it the city which has spent the most cumulative days under stay-at-home orders in the world.

The end of the state of emergency renders the remaining Covid orders and vaccine mandates unenforceable. 

This means Victorians will no longer be required to isolate after testing positive to Covid-19. 

Despite the ending of the state’s pandemic declaration, Mr Andrews insisted vaccine mandates would stay for health workers.

‘Mandates remain important for our health workers, for our disability workers, for our aged care workers; the last thing we want is our health workers contributing to making people sick,’ he told reporters in Geelong on Friday. 

‘They’re going to continue to be vaccinated and they want to be vaccinated.’ 

At national cabinet last week all states unanimously voted to ditch Covid isolation mandates from October 14 with Mr Andrews saying the nation moves into the next stage of pandemic management. 

 ‘It’s about trying to end that COVID exceptionalism. We’ll have more to say about the pandemic declaration quite soon,’ he said. 

Third dose mandates remain for places such as in prisons and health settings and across the states emergency services.

In Victoria, 94.8 per cent of people aged 12 and over have received their initial two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Almost 70 per cent of people aged 16 and over have had their third dose.

More to come