Victoria added 92 local cases to COVID-19 tally | 29 August

PREMIER Daniel Andrews says anyone outside regional Victoria's outbreak zones will have to wait until later in the week to see if their chances of eased restrictions can improve.

It has come after telling reporters the chances of reopening statewide was not something the government could "seriously consider" early this week, following a record spike in recorded COVID-19 cases on Sunday.

"We will take the best advice from are the public health officer and if there are things we can ease in regional Victoria, if there are decisions to see some freedoms to those, then we will follow that advice," Mr Andrews said.

"I wish these numbers were lower. I wish I had a warehouse full of vaccines, it wouldn't be full for long because we would get it into people's arms as quickly as possible.

"But these are the realities we face."

11.25am

NO STAFF and residents at an Echuca aged care site are positive for COVID-19.

Coronavirus commander Jeroen Weimar said authorities had completed more than 200 tests.

"It looks to be under good control," he said.

The recent waste water sampling we've done around the facility has also indicated negative results."

The news comes after a fully vaccinated worker was at the site briefly while notionally infectious.

Another nine cases have been added to regional Victoria's major coronavirus outbreak in Shepparton.

They are spread across 37 different households.

About 1300 people in the area got tested on Saturday and Mr Weimar thanked them for their help.

"I'm also pleased to confirm that we've downgraded two of the school sites, and have been able to do that by the fantastic response we've seen to testing in the Shepparton area and remove those two campuses from our lines of investigation."

11.15am

PREMIER Daniel Andrews has ruled out reopening after the state recorded its highest jump in daily COVID-19 cases this year.

Victoria recorded 92 locally acquired cases overnight.

"Essentially, we see far too many cases today for us to be able to seriously consider opening up later on this week," the premier said.

"Obviously [we have] almost 100 cases today, where many of them remain mysteries, many of them were out in the community during their infectious period.

"It is not going to be possible for us to open up our Victorian community in just a couple of days' time.

"We will, however, look at all the different options. We don't yet have advice from the Chief Health Officer as to what is possible, what is safe."

Mr Andrews said that the ongoing lockdowns would be vital to stop Victoria's cases getting to the point that New South Wales had reached.

"If you look to the experience in, say, New South Wales at the moment, I'm sure there are many thousands of nurses, many thousands of doctors, who are struggling with the fact that they will very soon, it would seem, have a thousand patients in hospital," he said.

"We can avoid that. We have avoided that to this point, and we are determined to do that again. I know there is pain and there is challenge and it's tough.

"But this getting completely out of hand is so much harder."

Earlier

VICTORIA has recorded another 92 locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to midnight.

A total of 61 of those cases have so far been linked to existing cases, the Department of Health says.

It is the largest jump in daily numbers of Victoria's current outbreak.

The state also added a single case acquired overseas.

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That person is currently in hotel quarantine.

An extra 51,030 coronavirus tests were returned on Saturday and 31,436 people were vaccinated.

Authorities were closely monitoring exposure sites in Echuca on Saturday but were hopeful that there would be few if any cases at an aged care facility a person with COVID-19 visited briefly.

That person was fully vaccinated and a majority of people living and working at the facility had at least had one dose.

Health authorities were also monitoring Shepparton and Melbourne's clusters.

Nationally, the federal government has been accused of ignoring advice about the shortcomings of a COVID-safe app, our sister paper the Canberra Times has revealed after obtaining a secret report.

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