The average number of daily coronavirus cases in Melbourne has plateaued in recent days.

It's raised concerns that the city won't be able to open up as fast as it had hoped.

But the number of cases is now about equal to what it was in NSW several months ago, but Sydney didn't have any lockdowns and managed to keep control.

So why is it that Victoria still can't open up?

On today's show:

* Looking at NSW stats around mid-July, there were 15/18/14/20 new coronavirus cases a day. It never escalated. No lockdown & life was covid-normal. Why isn't that happening now in Victoria on their current numbers?

* How is metro Melbourne going to get to the third step?

* Some kids are going back to school in Melbourne today - what do we know about how infectious kids are?

* Is President Trump out of the woods?

And Norman and Tegan talk about some CSIRO research about SARS-CoV-2 and surfaces.