Here is what will and will not be allowed during the new seven day lockdown, which starts at 8pm:

There will only five reasons to leave home:

Shopping and exercise must be done within five kilometres of your home or the nearest location.

Face masks will remain mandatory indoors except at home and outdoors unless an exception applies. This includes all workplaces and secondary schools.

Private gatherings are not permitted except for an intimate partner or nominated person visits. Public gatherings are not permitted. Exercise is limited to two people.

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Childcare and early childhood care will remain open. Schools will close, with primary and secondary school students returning to remote learning - except for vulnerable children and the children of authorised workers who can learn on-site.

Where a parent or carer indicates that a student with a disability cannot learn from home due to vulnerability or family stress, the school must provide on-site learning for that student. This will apply to students enrolled in specialist schools and students with a disability enrolled in mainstream schools.

Higher education students will also return to remote learning, except for learning programs allowed on the Authorised Premises and Authorised Workers List.

With a Wangaratta wastewater detection and the potential that regional Victorians have been exposed to COVID-19 linked to the current outbreak, restrictions will apply statewide to keep regional Victoria safe.

There are no changes to the current arrangements for border communities.

4.30pm

PREMIER Daniel Andrews says regional Victoria is going into lockdown after a positive waste water test outside metropolitan Melbourne.

"We have a sewerage test that has detected COVID-19 in the north-east, where a Wangaratta sewerage test has pinged," he said.

Mr Andrews said the first test was positive and the second negative, before the third pinged positive again.

"We have some reason to believe there is COVID-19 in that community or has been in that community," he said.

"We saw last time, a few weeks ago this went from Melbourne into Bacchus Marsh, Barwon Heads, all the way up to Mildura.

"That's why it is statewide and I think as painful as it is, and counterintuitive sometimes as it is, we don't want this taking hold in country Victoria, we just don't, none of us are happy to be here, none of us but these are the realities we face and none of us have the luxury of ignoring them."

The government will keep reviewing the situation daily and is yet to rule out an extension to the seven-day lockdown announced late Thursday afternoon.

"I hope not to extend that but we will be guided by not what is politically convenient or popular but what the science tells us," Mr Andrews said.

Earlier

VICTORIA will be heading into its sixth lockdown as the state races to head off any out of control outbreaks.

Premier Daniel Andrews says the lightning-fast change is designed to head off the risk of transmission in a fast-moving situation.

Mr Andrews said the snap lockdown would run for seven days from 8pm on Thursday night.

It was being brought in with little notice in an effort to head off the risk of COVID-19 transmission at hospitality venues on Thursday night.

"You might ask why not midnight tonight why is it a snap lockdown, we missed the Frankie's outbreak there was transmission on the night of the lockdown last time," Mr Andrews said.

"This evening is go home, and begin that lot down. Don't be out and about because all you might be doing is spreading the virus."

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It comes as two new cases of coronavirus were detected on top of the six previously announced Thursday morning.

Visitor restrictions will remain in place at Bendigo Health, as they have since the state entered its fifth lockdown in July.

Bendigo Health has confirmed their Mollison Street vaccination centre will continue to operate and they encourage anyone eligible to get vaccinated.

It was revealed on Tuesday that Bendigo was leading the nation with the highest percentage of first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered.

New data released by the federal government showed 52.6 per cent of people aged 15 and over have received their first dose in the region.

Thursday marks the one year anniversary Victoria recording 725 cases, the highest daily number of infections in its deadly second wave of the virus, AAP says.

More to come

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