Bendigo Health says it is confident free transmission is not taking place in the community, with most recent new cases linked to clusters.

An infection spread modelling expert told the Bendigo Advertiser future waves of disease in Victoria were possible, but depended on the degree of behaviour change.

Victoria is preparing for eased restrictions, with a roadmap due to be released on Sunday.

Read more: Regional Victoria to have a different reopening plan

Premier Daniel Andrews will set out a roadmap for the state's reopening on Sunday, aiming to find a "COVID-normal" to last for several months. This roadmap is likely to be different for regional Victoria compared to Melbourne.

Bendigo Health chief executive Peter Faulkner said the city was well placed to balance eased restrictions, but respond to new cases when they inevitably appeared.

Mr Faulkner said low case numbers in the Greater Bendigo over the past few days were reassuring.

He said most new cases were associated with known outbreaks, giving Bendigo Health a high degree of confidence free transmission was not taking place in the community.

Read more: On the case - How Bendigo's contact tracers track COVID-19

But Mr Faulkner said physical distancing, mask wearing and hygiene were likely to be an ongoing feature of life for Bendigo residents - and key to keeping the COVID-19 controlled.

He said regional contact tracing gave Bendigo the toolkit to respond quickly to outbreaks.

Testing - and self-isolation until a result came through - were key to effective contact tracing, and preventing spread, Mr Faulkner said.

LaTrobe University infectious disease spread modelling expert Joel Miller said Victoria was a risk of a third wave of COVID-19 if residents returned to normal behaviour immediately.

Dr Miller said the government's challenge was to balance the tension between the amount of behaviour change needed, and what other steps it could take to keep COVID-19 under control.

Lessons from Victoria's most recent outbreak would mitigate some risks, but much was still unknown about COVID-19's behaviour and spread, Dr Miller said.

But Dr Miller said it was unlikely a third wave would take off as fast as Victoria's second wave had, as people were likely to be more careful.

Dr Miller said mask wearing and stronger contact tracing systems were likely to reduce the risk of another large scale outbreak.

He said it was possible to avoid lockdowns even without total elimination of the disease, pointing to examples such as Hong Kong.

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Mr Faulkner said he was relieved the COVID-19 spread in Bendigo had not continued on its trajectory of early August, when active cases went from four to 57 in just over two weeks.

He said Bendigo Health had taken the opportunity to review its learnings and prepare for future outbreaks.

"We as an organisation have to be prepared to respond," he said.

"We can't switch things off, and think it's gone away. International case numbers tell us that's just not true. It's still very prevalent across the globe.

"The more we ease up, the higher risk, the more risk increases."

Mr Faulkner said the communtiy had done great work observing the restrictions, and Bendigo Health staff had done great work responding to the crisis.

He said Australian Defence Force personnel had contributed to testing efforts in the city.