While we reported several weeks ago that Victorian salons may be given the go-ahead to come out of lockdown early, a surge in the state’s COVID-19’s cases may have squashed that hope.
In the original reopening roadmap, laid out in early-September, beauty services were scheduled to reopen during the third step, from October 26. It was then speculated that this could happen a week earlier, from October 19.
However, the earlier opening date was based on the condition that the state recorded no more than five cases a day, on average, over a two-week period.
However, with Melbourne recording 15 new cases on Monday, it has become mathematically impossible to achieve the necessary target by October 19.
At a press conference, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said that beauty salons should be prepared for their opening date to be pushed back. Asked whether owners should cancel any bookings that have been made, Mr Andrews didn’t give a definitive answer. “I would just say…all of those bookings, the status of those, can only be determined once we’ve made a final call on what’s safe for us to do in the next step,” he added. “If that causes inconvenience, I’m sorry about that. I am. But those bookings were only ever made … on the basis [that] we’d have to look and see what the actual, real data told us.”
Visit the #BEAUTYSTRONG hub at https://professionalbeauty.go-vip.net/beautystrong/
For more news and updates, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.