Victoria set a new daily record as 2,297 locally acquired cases were recorded on Thursday, along with 11 more deaths.
It was the first time that an Australian state broke the 2,000 daily cases, breaking the record set on 9 October when the state had recorded 1,965 cases.
With the new deaths, the total number of lives lost to the virus in the recent wave has been 125 and the total number of deaths in Victoria is at 945 people. Of these, there have been at least 173 deaths from the Greek community, according to sources of Neos Kosmos.
The only ray of hope is that 86.7 per cent of eligible Victorians have now received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 61.5 per cent are fully vaccinated.
READ MORE: Victoria has record 1965 new COVID-19 cases, five further deaths-NSW has 580 new cases and 11 deaths
Victoria is heading towards the 70 per cent double vaccination mark, a few days earlier than expected with Health authorities being told to be ready to ease lockdown restrictions as early as next Thursday. It is possible that home visits may be given the green light ahead of schedule.
It is possible that Melburnians may know by the end of the week whether restrictions will be eased.
“Just give me a few more days, and I’ll give you as much clarity as I can about what next week looks like and the week after that and the week after that,” Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews told the press on Wednesday.
“We’ve just got this little bit extra to do now to push past 70 per cent and if we can do that early before the roadmap, what a fantastic problem for us to have.”