Health authorities will expand waste water testing to 10 new sites, including in Gisborne and Kilmore.

It comes a week after Castlemaine was added to 40 regional sites.

Authorities started testing Bendigo waste water last month.

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They are looking for fragments of the COVID-19 crisis. If they find it they can urge people in specific communities to get tested, potentially uncovering unknown outbreaks.

They are additional to other monitoring efforts, including nasal swabs for people who exhibit symptoms.

11.14am

The total number of regional COVID-19 cases in regional Victoria has risen to five.

Premier Daniel Andrews says one extra case has been recorded in Kilmore, where all other cases have been linked to one outbreak.

Mr Andrews says we are very close to taking "big steps" on COVID-19 that will "draw a line under 2020".

They are unlikely to come next Sunday as health authorities had hoped, he said.

"The tail end of the second wave was always going to be stubborn and that is the way it is panning out," he said.

However, Mr Andrews told Melbournians they could expect small steps taken next Sunday.

The premier and health leaders will make decisions about exactly what they will be over the weekend and over the course of next week, with a particular focus on mystery cases and the circumstances of those where transmission is known.

Earlier

VICTORIA has recorded another 14 cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths this morning.

It marks the third consecutive day that no nationality deaths have been recorded across the state.

The number of new infections has risen slightly from the 11 recorded yesterday and Thursday.

New infections reached as low as six in numbers released on Wednesday morning but have generally hovered in the low teens this week.

The Department of Health and Human Services is reporting that the number of mystery cases where no known source of transmission is down in Melbourne.

Regional Victoria's 14 day rolling average case numbers is at 0.4.

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