Mr Weimar said so far this year, Victoria has already seen more positive cases than the entire first year of the pandemic.

"We are already seeing in the space of three days, more people being infected than over the course of the entire first year of the pandemic," he said.

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"It shows you how fast Omicron is moving and how rapidly we all need to move and change our behaviours to meet this oncoming challenge."

Mr Weimar also said the rate of positive cases of those tested "has never been seen before", making it difficult for labs to get results out as quickly.

"With the high case numbers in our community, we have to assume if we're symptomatic, that we're probably COVID positive," he said.

"PCR results are taking two days to come back because of the high rate of cases coming back positive.

"For anyone who is waiting longer than a day or two for your PCR test results, I do apologise.

"Because the work that our labs are having to do with the higher rate of positive cases in all of our test samples, please wait because your test result will come."

Mr Weimar said authorities are now seeing one in five cases who are being tested in a PCR system coming back positive.

"That's a tenfold increase - normally that number is around a two per cent positivity rate," he said.

People are reminded that even with a weak positive on a rapid antigen test, they should isolate until they get a negative result.

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"If you've got a positive PCR result, you must isolate for seven days and the people you live with must isolate for seven days," he said.

"If you've had a rapid antigen test result and that result is positive, we'd like you to isolate until you cna get a positive PCR test.

"If the PCR lines are too long then please continue to isolate on the back of your RAT results, you can of course keep taking RATs to confirm that result.

"I do ask that only people who are symptomatic or have returned a positive RAT result to line up for a PCR test.

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"You can see the sheer pressure on our system and the sheer number of cases we have to process."

Minister for Health Martin Foley said case numbers will continue to increase "exponentially".

"You'll recall the December meeting of National Cabinet received advice from the Doherty Institute, which essentially pointed to precisely what's happening," he said.

"If anything, about the Institute's modelling, it might indeed be conservative in terms of the infection rates that we're starting to see with Omicron."

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