How Melbourne is embracing its freedom

Victorians have all been feeling the lifting of lockdown a little differently. But if these figures are any guide, most have wasted little time reclaiming their freedom of movement.

Moving around Melbourne

You can see on the City of Melbourne’s pedestrian trackers the moment the 80 per cent easing occurred and retail reopened on October 29.

In the hour around 7pm at Bourke Street Mall, there was a 881 per cent surge on the previous month’s average foot traffic past David Jones and Myer. And it wasn’t a one-off, with data from last week suggesting the CBD is seeing a decent bump in visitors compared to lockdown in October.

Those heading out on Melbourne’s roads would be right in thinking the city is heading back towards the chronically congested norm. Which some have found oddly soothing.

Mobility across the state, as measured through the number of route requests made in Apple’s maps app, had been creeping up slowly for weeks. But it has surged since the lockdown ended, with driving route requests back to levels higher than were normally seen pre-pandemic.

Planning trips to enjoy the opened economy

A glance at what Victorians have been searching online is also revealing. While there were some half-hearted searches for picnic inspiration during lockdown, it’s searches for restaurants that soared in October as the state stepped out of restrictions.

Victoria’s hotels are slowly beginning to fill up, with hospitality data analytics company STR noting a surge in Victorian hotel occupancy from 22.6 per cent around October 24 to 56.9 per cent on October 30, the weekend Melbourne and the regions were reunited.

So far, all the COVID numbers are moving in the right direction

It’s less clear what all of this might mean for COVID-19 cases. Burnet Institute modelling forecasts another peak in cases around December-January, which hopefully won’t be accompanied by a huge spike in hospitalisations, thanks to the state’s extremely high vaccination coverage. 

But so far, in both New South Wales and in Victoria, that upwards trajectory in infections is yet to fully emerge. The seven-day average for daily new cases in Victoria has been dropping fairly consistently, but rose slightly with the latest day’s figures to about 1,205. The overall trend for hospitalisations has also been stabilising and dipping slightly.