12.20pm
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Health Minister Martin Foley has announced a ramp up of vaccination clinics across the state to get as many people the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as possible.
He said the goal was to have 300,000 Victorians vaccinated every week at the ramped up clinics
Mr Foley said the flagship centre at the Royal Exhibition Building would stay open until March and six other state run vaccination centres previously planned to be scaled down in the pre-Omicron world would now remain open to maximise the number of people getting vaccinated.
As of tomorrow, state-run booster pop-up vaccination clinics will be open in regions and holiday facilities.
Mr Foley said all existing fixed vaccination sites would operate 12 hours a day, seven days a week
He said the massive scale up was aimed at meeting demand for children aged five to 11 who became eligible for their first dose on January 10.
It is also aimed at the more than one million people aged 12 and above who will become eligible for their third dose of the vaccine - the booster shot - having had their second dose in September or earlier.
11.55am
GREATER Bendigo has recorded 30 new COVID-19 cases.
Data from the Department of Health released on Monday showed there were 147 active cases in the region.
The new Bendigo COVID-19 cases were from the 3550, 3551, 3555, 3556, and 3557 postcodes.
There were also new cases recorded in other parts of central Victoria.
Macedon Ranges recorded 26 new cases, while the Campaspe Shire had seven new cases.
There were also four new infections in Mount Alexander Shire and two new cases in Buloke, while the Central Goldfields, Loddon, and Gannawarra shires all recorded single cases.
Earlier
VICTORIA has recorded another 8577 COVID-19 cases on a weekend when numbers stabilised after a post-Christmas surge.
It is not yet clear whether New Year's festivities will drive a renewed spike in case numbers across the state and in Greater Bendigo.
The municipality saw its total active cases rise from 70 last Monday to 117 on Saturday.
Another three people have died from the virus and its complications, according to Department of Health statistics released on Monday morning.
A total of 491 spent Sunday in hospital with COVID-19, 56 in intensive care and 24 on ventilators.
Health workers tested 44,168 people and vaccinated 494 people on Sunday.
The latest Victorian coronavirus data comes as disease experts say there is still very little research on the long-term effects of COVID-19.
"The research is still early for COVID in general and will likely take years for us to work out exactly what it means in the long term," Australian National University infectious diseases expert associate professor Sanjaya Senanayake said.
"If we can put therapies in to support patients who experience long COVID we can hopefully reduce the time they have those symptoms to support them get to as normally functioning as possible," University of Canberra Hospital director of allied health Todd Kaye said.
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