THE ACT government was on the verge of announcing the easing of pandemic restrictions before Victoria entered a five-day lockdown.

The state’s declaration that will come into affect from midnight on February 13 has forced Chief Minister Andrew Barr to implement a new public health declaration order.

Canberrans returning after the Friday night deadline will be required to quarantine for the length of Victoria’s lockdown that is expected to end on Wednesday night.

Returning residents, who arrived home prior to the Victorian announcement on Friday (February 12), are instead being asked only “to use commonsense” and consider taking a COVID-19 test.

“Whilst these quarantine measures will not apply to those people, we are asking them to use commonsense and to be very cautious over the next few days, to check our website to see if they have been in an exposed location,” Mr Barr said.

Others left behind are being urged to stay in Victoria and not enter the ACT.

Mr Barr said the government will monitor the stability of the outbreak of a hyper-infectious UK strain of coronavirus that is spreading at a quicker rate to past strains.

Should the “increase of risk” in Victoria not spread to close contacts and the state emerges from lockdown without significant outbreaks before February 17, the territory will look at increasing capacity significantly on venues for entertainment and large events.

“We may be in a position to announce some further of what we would hope be ongoing easing of restrictions related to those areas that we identified … but we are not going to do that today now,” Mr Barr said.

“But we’ll have a look next week once we have some more information.”

Mr Barr said the territory should take a conservative approach, understanding the concern for Canberrans either stuck in Victoria and or have family located in the state.

But the government still remains optimistic that things will change for the better in the ACT while wanting residents to continue to exhibit covid-safe behaviour.

“It’s a challenging time, but it’s not a surprise,” Mr Barr said.

“I don’t think this will be the last time I’ll stand at this podium and make announcements similar to these.

“It’s the third time already this year and I did say at the beginning of 2021 that it would look a lot like 2020 – and that’s proved to be absolutely correct.

“With vaccines coming, we would hope we would not be in this situation though in the second half of the year.

“But for now these measures are necessary, proportionate and appropriate.”

ACT chief health officer Dr Kerryn Coleman has “noted with some concern” the situation of the Victorian cases, the rise in exposure locations and the recent spread through greater Melbourne that culminated in the identification of additional sites around Melbourne Airport.

Passengers who were at a Melbourne terminal on February 7 and 8 must immediately get tested and isolate until they get a negative result.

Despite no Jetstar flights landing in Canberra, Ms Coleman asked ACT residents to follow Victorian advice and immediately isolate for 14 days regardless of a negative test should a traveller have been at Melbourne’s terminal 4 from 4.45am until 2pm on February 4.

“For travellers returning to the ACT, there are more opportunity for people to be unknowingly exposed to the virus,” Ms Coleman said.

“I think from that perspective, there is a risk of introduction into the ACT, but the risk of that is low.”

Ms Coleman said Canberrans rushing back from Victoria are not of high risk unless they were in tier-one exposure sites.

“Even for those ACT residents that do need to return despite the lockdown, if you have been in one of those exposure locations you do need to go into quarantine,” she said.