Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that QR check in rules are now under review, as Victorians are checking in less and less.
Data that has been compiled by The Sunday Age reveals that the number of QR check ins in Victoria from from 45.6 million in the last week of November to 20.3 million for a weekly average in February. That’s a drop of more than half the amount of check ins Victorians used to do in the period of three months.
The changes to these rules comes on the day Victoria recorded 7,223 new COVID-19 cases and 18 deaths.
Currently, 465 people in Victoria are in hospital. 62 of those are in ICU and 17 are on ventillators.
Of the new cases, 2,364 positive results were from PCR tests and 4,859 were from rapid antigen tests.
We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.
Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.
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More data soon: https://t.co/OCCFTAtS1P#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/mgFXzpNM6Z
— Victorian Department of Health (@VicGovDH) February 12, 2022
Currently, Victoria has nearly 55,000 cases.
Andrews said on Sunday morning that the QR check in rules in Victoria were under “very active review” and he hoped to make an announcement about the result soon.
He announced Victoria’s rules would be consistent with New South Wales, with “hopefully some changes in a range of different areas”.
“We don’t have many rules on at the moment, but I think we can further streamline those,” he said.
“QR coding at the moment is not being used for the purposes of contact tracing because there is no contact tracing.
“What it’s used for at the moment is to validate that the person has the green tick … QR coding still operates in some settings where you don’t need to be vaccinated, like the local supermarket.”
It seems that the government is looking to get rid of the compulsory check in rules in venues where you don’t need to be fully vaccinated to enter, since there is no more contact tracing and what the check in provides now is venues with the green tick to show that visitors have been vaccinated. Other states have begun to do the same.
Last week, Queensland got rid of the rule that people had to check into venues that don’t require you to be vaccinated, like supermarkets, due to a lack of compliance within the community. South Australia and the ACT have also dialed back on these rules.
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