Victoria's Chief Health Officer has defended the decision to continue mandating masks for some primary school students as a proportionate response given the state's high caseload and low vaccination coverage among younger children.
The state has reported 17 additional COVID-19 deaths, days ahead of a major easing of remaining restrictions.
Hospitalisations remain steady at 319, a decrease on Tuesday's figure of 345.
Of the patients in hospital, 46 are in intensive care and eight are on ventilators.
The state has reported 6,926 new infections, taking the number of active cases to 42,016.
Its seven-day average for daily infections has fallen significantly over the past few weeks and now sits at 6,558.
Around 94 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and older have received two vaccine doses, and roughly 57 per cent of adults have received three.
Chief Health Officer defends ongoing mask rule in primary schools
From Saturday, masks will no longer be required in most indoor settings and the recommendation to work from home if possible will end.
One of the settings where masks will remain mandatory is at primary schools for students in grade three and above.
On Tuesday, the Premier said that was largely because the vaccination rate among five to 11-year-olds was still sitting at around 54 per cent.
The opposition has criticised the measure, arguing it will divide children and put Victoria out of step with settings across the country in March.
"There shouldn't be masks in primary schools, we shouldn't have some kids in primary schools with masks and some without," opposition leader Matthew Guy said.
"The Liberals and Nationals don't support masks in primary schools, it's time we moved on from that."
Today, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the mandate was proportionate given the high caseload in Victoria and the fact that vaccination coverage in that age bracket remained low due to their late eligibility.
"I think we'll review [it] certainly at the end of this term, we'll see where vaccination coverage has got to and where our numbers are."
Professor Sutton said many children had made mask-wearing part of their routine and were "doing it without blinking" and he struggled to understand the harms "people seem to project" onto children wearing masks.
Peter Collignon, a professor of infectious diseases at Australian National University, said the benefit of keeping young children in masks at school was "very debatable".
"Yes, children can have it and spread it but they do it less than their parents and teachers," he said.
"So to have them wearing masks and other people not is a bit incongruous."
Professor Collignon said schools operating with students on-site had not led to as much COVID-19 spread as predicted.
"A lot of people were really making the point that schools would cause another big rise in the epidemic curve," he said.
"That hasn't been true, in fact it's not true around the world.
"So, the very people making those predictions are the ones really pushing masks for children and they were wrong with their predictions and I think they're wrong with this strong advice for young children as well."
Masks still recommended indoors, Sutton says
Professor Sutton said while there was a focus on the mandates, it was important to note that wearing a mask indoors remained recommended by the government.
"That remains true for everyone, ongoing and probably for some time to come, the recommendation will probably be there for years," he said.
He said the lifting of a mandate for masks in offices was done to give people more options if they wanted to return to work on site.
"But I would say everyone needs to think about the fact that there'll be people with significant pre-existing conditions, there'll be people who've had two doses, very well protected, some with three, who are extremely well protected, but there'll be others who are not," he said.
"And so it's both for your own benefit to wear it, and for others.
"But we're not going to mandate it because we know that that will hold a significant number of people back from returning."
