Two men in their 80s have died in Victoria overnight from COVID-19 as the state logged a record daily rise in new infections, authorities confirmed on Thursday.
Victoria reported 317 new daily cases, the highest since the pandemic began. The state’s previous high of 288 new cases came last week.
There are 109 people in hospital in Victoria, many are younger people, and there are 29 people receiving intensive care.
Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton said the state may not have seen the worst of new case increases yet.
“We may still not have hit our peak. It’s a big number. It needs to turn around,” he told reporters.
“In some ways, I expected it to turn around this week. But as I always said, it’s no guarantee. It’s upon all of us to be able to turn this number around.
“The restrictions, the stage three restrictions have been in place for over a week, with an average incubation period of five or six days, plus the time for notification to get the numbers in, we would really expect a plateauing in the next couple of days.”
