Melbourne may face extended level 4 lockdown if case numbers don't start coming down. Photo / Getty Images
Melbourne may face extended level 4 lockdown if case numbers don't start coming down. Photo / Getty Images
Melbourne residents have been issued a grim warning about the city's tough stage four restrictions, with concerns the lockdown could be extended beyond the September 13 deadline.
Though Victoria's Covid-19 case numbers dipped below 100 on Saturday for the first time in two months, Premier Daniel Andrews said the figureswere still "too high" for Melbourne to move down to stage three.
"At 100, 94, at 114, whatever the number, we simply could not open up," he said on Sunday.
"Those numbers would explode, we would finish up and perhaps an even worse situation than we have been in recent months. We cannot fritter away all that good work and sacrifice.
"Once we see these numbers fall further, we will be able to talk in more definitive terms. We all wanted this second wave to be defeated but it needs to be defeated properly."
Andrews said it was still too early to say whether restrictions could be eased at the end of the six-week lockdown, but assured residents a plan would be in place "soon".
"These case numbers are too high for us to open up, and they are still too high for us to put forward a definitive plan," he said.
"There will be a plan. It will come soon. But it will be one that we can be confident of, not something that potentially gets a few of people being happier, but then ultimately has to be revised because it didn't mean much when you first announced it."
The premier said the government is aiming to give Victorians a "clear sense" of the different stages that will be implemented over the next few months.
However, if Andrews wants to keep any restrictions in place he will need support from Victorian crossbenchers to extend the government's state of emergency powers beyond 11.59pm on September 13.
Andrews has been pushing for a 12-month extension of the state of emergency powers to allow the government to keep the Covid-19 rules in place they deem necessary.
