By Luke Voogt
A pub owner and an MP have called for an increase in Geelong patron limits to 50 with two active COVID-19 cases in the city.
Sphinx Hotel owner George Ramia questioned why Geelong was being “penalised” amid COVID-19 outbreaks in 10 Melbourne postcodes.
“If there are regions that are proclaimed to be safe, I don’t see why we can’t open up,” he said.
Mr Ramia purchased thousands of dollars’ of stock in preparation to reopen on June 22 when patron limits had been scheduled to increase to 50.
He reopened the 1200-person venue anyway despite state government revising the limit to 20 amid consecutive daily double-digit increases across Victoria.
“At the current 20 it’s pretty much unviable,” he said.
Victoria recorded another 77 cases as of midnight on Wednesday, bringing the state total to 2303, including 415 active cases.
But most new cases were confirmed in 10 now locked-down hot spots, Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said yesterday.
“The government has locked down places by postcode,” Member for Western Victoria Bev McArthur said.
“So why don’t we unlock areas by postcode, which have got no active cases or barely a case, so that we can get at least rural Victoria up and going.”
Mrs McArthur said the initial purpose of the lockdown was to provide time to bolster health services, which state government had spent millions of dollars doing in Geelong.
Hospitality in regional Victoria should not be “shafted” for state government and health authority “failures” to prevent mass gatherings or effectively manage hotel quarantine, she said.
Cafes and other venues had operated with “an extraordinary-high level of compliance” with health requirements, she added.
“I have every confidence the hospitality industry will work hard to ensure the safety of their patrons,” she said.
She warned the consequences of keeping regional Victoria under the same restrictions as the rest of the state would “be far worse than the virus itself”.
“If we keep going at this rate, we’ll have few, if any businesses left and thousands more on the unemployment scrap heap.”
Geelong had two active cases as of midnight on Wednesday.
