More people in hospitality, worship venues as COVID rules ease from May 28

A Bendigo hospitality manager said the announcement of eased COVID restrictions for small and medium-sized operators was "fantastic" and "a long time coming".

"These businesses rely on turnover and bums on seats," Finn Vedelsby of The Dispensary said.

"It is very good news to hear that we're returning to some sort of normal.

"There's going to be a lot of rebuilding going on, but it's great to have the optimism.

"It's a reward for a lot of hard work and people in this industry being compliant and doing the right right thing."

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Mr Vedelsby said there were still some nerves about the future, despite Friday's good news.

"It's been a long time coming and there certainly is apprehension and fear in our industry that it could be shut down with a snap decision at any given time, with no regard to how much stock you've got in the fridge," he said.

"But this is certainly the direction we'd like to go - it brings us optimism and relief."

Earlier

Eased COVID restrictions will allow more people into restaurants, bars, nightclubs and places of worship, the state government has said.

Density limits will be removed from "small-to-medium" venues, with spaces of less than 400 square metres.

"From May 28, these venues can have up to 200 people per space (such as a dining room or band room) without any density limit, provided COVID marshals are on site ensuring all patrons are checking in to each space," the government said.

"These changes will apply for spaces that are 400 sqm or below, larger spaces still need to observe density limits."

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The government also said from May 28 all venues and businesses required to undertake electronic record keeping must use the state government's QR code service through the Service Victoria app.

"This change means checking in will be quick and easy and ensure the data is high-quality and easily available to our contract tracers, should any venue be listed as an exposure site," health minister Martin Foley said.

There were no new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Victoria overnight.

More to come

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