Victorians are being urged to temper lockdown frustrations, with the state's chief health officer Brett Sutton arguing their coronavirus scenario is profoundly different to other states.
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Hopes have been dashed of Melbourne taking all of its forecast stage three steps next Monday, given current new case numbers.
Premier Daniel Andrews says some of those steps will go ahead, but he is pessimistic about what will be on offer for businesses.
That is fuelling growing discontent among Victorians after several months of tough lockdown provisions to deal with the state's devastating second wave of the virus.
As state parliament resumed on Tuesday, the opposition moved a vote of no confidence against Mr Andrews over his handling of the pandemic.
Victoria's daily new cases are similar to NSW, which enjoys much more relaxed measures.
Victoria had 12 new cases on Tuesday and one death, a man in his 70s, taking the state toll to 811 and the national figure to 898.
It's the sixth consecutive day of new Victorian cases in double figures, reflecting the stubborn tail of the second wave.
Professor Sutton said on Tuesday there are crucial differences between NSW and Victoria with the virus.
"The differences are really profound ... through this second wave, the 20,000 cases that occurred across Victoria settled into the hardest cohorts and populations across the state," he said.
"The number of close contacts per household and the number of close contacts they have are hugely different."
He also noted that Victoria was coming down from August's high of 725 cases a day.
"The challenge in Victoria is profoundly different from equivalent case numbers in any other jurisdiction in Australia," he said.
"If we had started with a few cases that were not really complex households, that were not really challenging circumstances, we might have been able to approach this very differently.
"What we had was 20,000 cases over several weeks that have come down to a really low level.
"But the remaining chains of transmission in Victoria are some of the trickiest, I imagine, in the world."
Prof Sutton acknowledged the community frustration, but doubts people are losing faith.
The premier added that while the situation is unfair, no businesses would benefit from the state opening up prematurely and then having to shut down again in a few weeks because of another wave.
"No business will benefit from being open for a very short period of time, only then to have to pinball in and out of rules and restrictions and shutdowns well into 2021," he said.
Mr Andrews has conceded Victoria's roadmap out of lockdown will likely be revised.
Melbourne needed a daily average of five cases as well as five or fewer mystery cases to move to the third step next Monday.
Neither target will be reached in time.
"If upon that further analysis, five is the new zero and 10 is the new five, well then we'll have to factor that in and we will," the premier said.
Melbourne's 14-day rolling new case average has risen back to 10, from 9.9, and the city's mystery cases for September 27 to October 10 are also up, by two to 13.
The regional figures remain steady at 0.4 and none, respectively.
Of the 12 new cases, seven are being investigated for links to the Box Hill Hospital outbreak, including four from the same household.
One is confirmed as linked to the Chadstone outbreak through a household contact and another is linked to the Estia Keilor aged care facility.
A Geelong case is being reviewed and might turn out to be a false positive.
Also on Tuesday, the state government announced a $250 million package to recruit 4100 tutors.
They will work in schools next year to help more than 200,000 students who have fallen behind in their learning because of the state's coronavirus lockdowns.
Australian Associated Press
