NSW Premier hints at further border restriction easing

But with Victoria's COVID-19 case numbers continuing to drop early this week, Ms Berejiklian said the border could soon be opened to the rest of regional Victoria, but not those living in metropolitan areas.

“It's not so much a number, it's really about how many unknown cases there are and what the trends are,” she said on Monday.

“We don't want to leave the borders up any more than we need to.

“Our health experts have been sharing data more and more and that helps us with our assessments.

“Apart from the Victorian situation the rest of Australia has absolutely no reason to have any borders between us.”

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said a number of factors would play a role in deciding when restrictions would be eased.

“The sorts of things we'll be looking at are the testing levels in Victoria, the level of locally acquired (cases) - where the person was not in isolation,” she said.

“As the numbers come down, the information we're getting from Victoria is much-improved, and I'd like to also extend my appreciation.

“When we've had some cases more recently in the border communities, where we've had to work together, we've worked together excellently.

“We want to see the effect of easing restrictions as well.

“At the moment, the number of contacts they would have for every case, given the lockdown, is very low.”

When asked whether she would like to see the effect of greater movement across Melbourne, Dr Chant said "it's one of those factors we consider as you ease restrictions, what do you see?”

“We're obviously very watchful about regional Victoria. Clearly there's been a number of controls put in place to prevent people moving from Melbourne to rural Victoria.

“As we know, no border or controls are ever fool-proof.”

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