Victoria’s Premier Dan Andrews announced that there were seven new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in the last 24 hours, before continuing to slightly ease coronavirus restrictions for the state of Victoria.

The new restrictions he announced – and a renewed State of Emergency – will be in place for the next three and a half weeks until 11:59pm on Sunday 31 May.

His announcement came following Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement for a three-stage lifting of restrictions on Friday which would be phased in at the discretion of each state.

Visiting family and friends

Premier Andrews said that from tomorrow midnight, people will be permitted to have five guests in their home. “They should be family and friends, after all, these are the people that mean the most to us,” he said.

“So, from just before midnight tomorrow night, until the end of May, this next […] three weeks You can have five, family and friends coming to your home.”

He made it clear, however, that people should be cautious. “With more freedom comes more responsibility. I’m asking Victorians to use common sense – you should only spend time together if it’s safe. And you should only be undertaking these activities if you really need to,” he said.

“Just because you can (visit friends), doesn’t mean you should. For our family, that means I won’t see my Mum for a little while. She’s in her 70s – and she has a number of conditions that would put her at risk.”

READ MORE: Three-stage roadmap announced to ease COVID-19 restrictions, but Victoria may lag behind

Sports and outdoor gatherings of 10 people

Another slight change allows for groups of 10 to engage in outdoor activities such as hiking, jogging, fishing, kicking the footy, or golf but these activities “will be subject to physical distancing” and should be guided by “logic”. For instance, “you can’t have ten people in a boat that doesn’t allow you to be 1.5m apart. You might be able to play golf, but there won’t be rakes in the bunkers, people won’t be milling around the club-house and it will be shut – the list goes on.”

Sports will also restart training.

“There have been a lot of work between the AFL and the public health team and we will be able to, we have agreed to a set of arrangements to allow training for AFL, for rugby league, other professional sports, to resume from just before midnight tomorrow night,” he said.

“It’s not about a return to a full Auskick program, not amateur footy coming back coming back at pace. It is cautious, the appropriate step.”

READ MORE: More stores open in Greece as more COVID-19 restrictions are lifted

Travel

There are still limits to how far you can travel, with Premier Andrews now making it possible for people to drive to the beach or their favourite hiking track though they should still abide by physical distance rules. Camping however is still out, with no overnight stays allowed at national and state parks.

“Airbnb will not take bookings. There won’t be bookings at hotels,” he said. “We don’t think that is appropriate. If you need to visit family and friends, then you are able to do that. We ask people to use common sense and good judgement. Things like camping won’t be allowed. We think that is appropriate, just for the three weeks. That may change in June.”

Funerals and Weddings

Weddings will now be able to have 10 guests, and up to 20 people will be able to attend funerals held indoors and up to 30 if they’re outdoors.

Community facilities

Community services will open up to the public, however groups will be limited to 10 people. “There are changes also to the way a number of community facilities work. For instance, some counselling services which we believe are really very important, some council facilities, community centres, that run Alcohols Anonymous meetings, counselling and other integral and important community meetings, they will be allowed but again, no more than ten and there will be physical distancing and all of the other usual arrangements. Nothing changes there,” Premier Andrews said.

Schools

On Wednesday, schools will also start to look at a return to on-site learning with the government close to finalising a plan so that classroom learning could resume by the end of Term 2 in Victoria.

“We had for the purposes of certainty said to parents across the state that they should plan and assume that learning from home would continue for the entirety of term two,” he said.

“We now believe that a gradual, staged return to face-to-face learning is safe, cautious and appropriate, given the testing we’ve done and the circumstances we face. Today’s not the day to announce the details.”

READ MORE: Confusion is king as the Commonwealth and Teachers’ union go head-to-head on schools opening

Work

Those who can still work from home are encouraged to do so for the rest of May.

“I would say to you there are many, many Victorians that are employers and workers, who have, because of the work they do, they have been able to work from home. I don’t want to see that change in the next three weeks,” Premier Andrews said. “The fact that we’re going to have literally hundreds of thousands of people visiting family and friends, that’s a big step a lot of movement that wasn’t happening. We have to be careful not to do too much, too soon. The problem then is how quickly it can get away from you.”

Victoria’s Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton said there would still be “no handshakes, no hugs and kisses is the safest thing to do and does make a difference and has made a difference to this point in time.”

Victoria’s steps to easing coronavirus restrictions are lagging behind other states. “This is safe, this is cautious, this is appropriate. We’re not other states. We face our own unique challenges and we need to be appropriate to those. We need to be cautious,” the Premier said, adding that the testing blitz of more than 161,000 Victorians had shown that the virus was still spreading in the community even though the numbers were stable.

“These are small steps, significant steps, though. You only get one chance to get this right. The last thing we want to do is follow the example that so many countries have given us – if you relax too many rules too quickly, then we will find ourselves back here and, indeed, worse. We will find ourselves in a lockdown even harder than the one’ we’re coming out of.”

He added that Victoria’s numbers are the “envy of the world” and we need to make sure “we jealously guard that”.

The experience of the next few weeks will guide us. It is only then that Premier Andrews says we will be able to “have more to say about cafes at that time, restaurants and a whole range of other issues.”