Albury has been described as the "human shield" in stopping coronavirus spreading from Victoria into regional NSW as a split on border restrictions appears to be developing between Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her deputy John Barilaro.
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Mr Barilaro told reporters in Sydney on Monday border communities such as Albury-Wodonga had done the heavy lifting in keeping a second wave of COVID-19 as seen in Victoria being replicated in NSW.
But dropping cases and improved contact tracing in Victoria meant NSW had to make a move on easing border restrictions.
Ms Berejiklian has steadfastly refused to make changes to border permit restrictions to date.
"That community has been the human shield for Sydney and the rest of the state and possibly for Queensland," Mr Barilaro said.
"The truth now is eight weeks on the numbers in Victoria have declined, outbreaks in the regions are even non-existent and therefore we have to change our position.
"I don't get to make the final decision.
."It is the leadership team at which the Premier has the final say.
"The world is different today to what is a week ago, two weeks ago, four weeks ago, eight weeks ago.
"At the height of the pandemic in the second wave we were seeing 600 or 700 cases in Victoria.
"The trend is right, contact tracing in Victoria has improved, we are confident with the data sets we are receiving.
"Therefore there is an obligation on us to lift restrictions."
There were 73 new cases recorded in Victoria on Monday, but sadly there were 41 more deaths.
Ms Berejiklian confirmed border restrictions changes would be announced this week as predicted by her deputy on his second visit to Albury last week.
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"I will be getting an update on the situation in regional Victoria this week as well which I've requested to make sure I have a good understanding of the risk outside of the border communities," she said.
"I commend my colleagues for defending their communities.
"That is what they should be doing."
Sources have told The Border Mail the border restrictions changes could be announced as early as Tuesday and coming into effect by Friday.
