Victoria has reported a national record of 1763 new local coronavirus cases and another four deaths as construction workers returned from a two-week industry shutdown.

Year 12 students returned to schools on Tuesday to sit for their General Achievement Test (GAT). A COVID-19 testing blitz prior to the exam recorded 33 positive cases among the students.

The total active coronavirus cases in Victoria are now at 14,368, and Victoria now holds the record for the worst ever tally of new cases which was previously held by NSW with 1,599 infections announced on 11 September.

Chief Health officer Brett Sutton said on Monday that the government would case publishing lower-risk COVID-19 exposure sites, and over the coming days, tier-2 locations would most likely drop off the website.

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“We have to focus our efforts on where we’ll get the most bang for buck, the greatest efficiency and effectiveness of contact tracing,” he said, adding that “people can’t go through 100 pages of tier two exposure sites online; they simply won’t”.

On a more positive note, at least 82.3 per cent of eligible Victorians have received a single dose of the COVID vaccine, with 52.6 per cent of the state being fully vaccinated.

Despite the rising vaccination rates, Melbourne is still in the world’s longest lockdown, surpassing Buenos Aires on Sunday evening.

Bastion Insights held a survey which reveals that less than a third of Victorians believe the risk of COVID-19 is worse than the economic impact of lockdowns, while 58 per cent believed that workplaces should be able to mandate vaccinations on staff.