Premier Daniel Andrews says Melbourne is now on track to further ease restrictions this weekend, with an announcement to be made on Sunday.

This comes after the 14-day average dipped below 30 to 29.4 today.

Victoria has recorded just 15 cases of COVID-19 and five deaths today, with all five deaths linked to aged care outbreaks.

Premier Daniel Andrews has praised Victorians for doing the right thing ahead of Sunday’s announcement of a return to stage 3 restrictions.

“I think all Victorians and particularly metropolitan Melburnians are very well aware, this Sunday marks a next step provided we are in that band of 30-50 cases,” he said.

“This shows, without any doubt, that our strategy is working, the numbers are coming down. We are very pleased with these numbers and very grateful for all the hard work and sacrifice and the commitment that every single Victorian is showing.

“You can’t achieve these outcomes, you can’t get to that COVID-19-normal without an amazing effort by the vast, vast majority of Victorians and to each of them, I say thank you.”

The potential ease of restrictions could come as soon as midnight on Sunday.

The Premier admitted he was looking to further ease restrictions past the original roadmap but would not provide any detail of what the relaxing of rules may look like.

“I’m not in a position give you the full list of what we’re looking at. We don’t want to do something that might seem quite small but could present a significant challenge to us in a couple of weeks’ time,” he said.

“The key point is we’ve still got a few days to go and we’ve got to refine things and make sure that we’re confident that the numbers we’re getting is an accurate reflection of how much virus is out there. But these numbers are a positive trend.”

Photo: Photo by NeilMorrell available HERE and used under a Creative Commons Attribution. The image has not been modified.