Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed 19 deaths related to COVID-19 in the state of Victoria, with 14 of these in aged care. He extended his condolences and sympathies to the families of those who lost loved ones, and also announced 322 new COVID-19 cases. He described coronavirus as a “wicked enemy”.

Today’s deaths include a man in his 50s, a woman in her 60s, two men in their 70s, one man and six women in their 80s and one man and seven women in their 90s.

In an effort to bring down numbers, Victoria is launching a new advertising campaign, to raise awareness about the health impact of COVID-19 for all of society, and not just the elderly. Nurses have already shot some advertisements of themselves to send out to non-English communities.

The campaign will include information about the after-effects of COVID-19 faced by those lucky enough to have pulled through, including a woman in her 30s who has returned to hospital following COVID-19.

READ MORE: Victoria set to announce 19 COVID-19 deaths, and 322 new cases on Monday

Victoria’s Health Minister Jenny Mikakos has announced changes to testing with a free service available throughout the state via a coronavirus hotline. “We are starting a call-to-test program that will enable someone to call our COVID-19 hotline, they’ll be assessed by a nurse through that hotline and, with a GP referral, we will go to them,” she said. “We will go to people’s homes and we will ensure that they will be able to be tested within a 48-hour period. This is designed to ensure that approximately 200 vulnerable Victorians every day will have access to this new testing capacity, making sure that people who might have limited mobility due to disability or might have other vulnerabilities due to chronic health conditions can get tested in their own home,” she said.

Mr Andrews said that, despite painful restrictions, it is hard to predict what will happen. “But what we can be certain of – without any doubt – that if we don’t limit movement, we’ve got zero chance – zero chance – of driving down these numbers,” he said.