Colac patient with COVID-19 expected to be "cleared from tally" soon: hospital

There is still one case in Colac-Otway Shire which Barwon Health said was a Colac resident currently in a stable condition in intensive care at a Geelong hospital.

Head of infectious diseases Professor Eugene Athan said he expected the patient would be cleared from the active DHHS tally soon.

There is one active case remaining in Geelong, Horsham and Moorabool.

The following postcodes are coronavirus free: Warrnambool, Ballarat, Corangamite, Glenelg, Golden Plains, Bendigo, Moyne, Southern Grampians and Surf Coast.

Victoria Police today announced a number of parties were broken up over the weekend, including one in Surf Coast Shire, where a group of adults had installed a jumping castle.

Commissioner Shane Patton said police had interrupted at least 10 separate parties being held at short-term rental properties.

"It's just amazing," he said.

He said there were 40 people at a party at Hoppers Crossing, in the city's west, where police gave out 15 fines.

In Victoria currently:

Earlier, 11.30am: Victoria has had another three coronavirus deaths as new case numbers dropped to their lowest since June 12.

The latest fatalities take the state toll to 787 and the national figure to 875.

But there were only five new cases, the first time since June that number has been below 10.

No new cases have been recorded in regional Victoria overnight, with the Premier announcing nine active cases in regional local government areas under the third step of the roadmap on Monday, reflecting no change from the DHHS report of nine cases on Sunday.

Barwon Health head of infectious diseases Professor Eugene Athan said there is one Colac resident in a Geelong hospital intensive care unit with COVID-19.

"They are currently stable and improving slowly,"

"We expect their status will be cleared from the active DHHS tally soon."

Melbourne's all-important rolling new case average is now down to 20.3 and is at 0.6 for regional areas.

There were just 31 cases with an unknown source for Melbourne from September 12-25 and none outside the city.

All of today's cases are linked to known outbreaks and one is a reclassification.

Overnight one male in his 60s, one woman in her 80s and one man in their 80s died from coronavirus. They were all linked to aged care.

there are 49 Victorians in hospital with COVID-19, with eight in intensive care and four on ventilators.

More than 2.68 million COVID test results have been processed in Victoria, an increase of 6807 test results overnight. Premier Daniel Andrews said that figure is within a few hundred of last Monday's numbers and reflects weekend testing trends.

"Again I'll take the opportunity to appeal to every single Victorian, if you've put off getting a test and you've got symptoms or had symptoms please get tested again," he said.

"What could be a challenge to reopening is if we don't see people coming forward get tested.

"We are well ahead of schedule, but we have to wait. This thing is silent, it moves rapidly, and you have to wait to see what happens because it is hidden for two to three weeks, you can't know today what the impact of yesterday's announcements until two or three weeks later."

Premier Andrews said the state was "so, so close" close to defeating the second wave.

"We are so close to being able to take a really big step, a big step towards that COVID-normal," he said.

"What's incredibly important, and I think every Victorian knows this ... is that everyone keeps following the rules, keeps doing the right thing."

There are 4724 mystery cases with an unknown source, an increase of one overnight.

Of the state's active cases 60 are healthcare workers, 182 are in aged care, and four are in disability settings and are all members of staff.

Nine active cases are regional areas, which is no increase from yesterday.

Jeroen Weimar who is leading the testing efforts in Victoria, said over the last two weeks 164,000 Victorians have came forward to get tested, equaling one in 40 Victorians coming forward to get tested.

"Each test is gold, it's so important to telling us where the virus is in the community and how to get numbers down," he said.

"For every positive case in metropolitan Melbourne, 387 came back negative. For every positive in regional Victoria 2500 tests were negative.

"Regional Victoria is fantastic, there's nine cases but am concerned about testing levels in outer regional Victoria.

Mr Weimar said there are 23 sampling sites across regional Victoria testing "at least weekly, if not twice weekly", waste water to see if there's any marginal traces of the coronavirus in those trace waters.

He said this was a "belt and braces" approach and that testing still needed to be higher in regional areas.

Mr Weimar said in Metro areas that over 16,000 people come forward to get tested around the wider Dandenong area.

"We continue to see a lot of work in Wyndham, Hume and Moreland. We're still seeing some cases in those communities and again, I particularly encourage people in the north and west - if you have any remote symptoms, please come forward and get tested."

Mr Weimar said that authorities were trialing saliva testing and that had uncovered a case in Dandenong.

Meanwhile, Melbourne has awoken after its final night of curfew following the Victorian government's decision to lift the COVID-19 lockdown measure.

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City dwellers have lived with the nightly 9pm to 5am curfew for eight weeks as authorities struggled to bring the state's second wave of infections under control.

The curfew was halted from 5am on Monday under widespread rule relaxations unveiled on Sunday.

Premier Daniel Andrews said lifting the curfew did not mean people could hold private indoor or outdoor gatherings, with those caught doing so liable for a beefed-up $5000 fine.

"No one has the right to put everything that Victorians have done at risk by going and potentially spreading the virus, one family to another," Mr Andrews said.

A trial contesting the curfew's legality under the state's human rights charter was scheduled for the Supreme Court on Monday.

The premier has denied the lifting of the curfew was motivated by the legal action.

From 11.59pm on Sunday, 127,000 people were able to return to work - close to 30,000 more than originally expected.

Other rule changes include childcare reopening, allowances for outdoor gatherings of up to five from two households and the lifting of a shopping limit of one person per household a day.

Victoria's VCE and VCAL students will also return to school for assessments from October 5, with primary school students back on October 12.

Hospital patients will be allowed one visitor per day for a maximum of two hours, while patients under 18 will be allowed unlimited visits from two parents or carers.

Melbourne's two-hour exercise limit and 5km travel restriction remain, although Mr Andrews foreshadowed full freedom of movement could come on October 19 ahead of AFL grand final weekend.

He urged Victorians not to let their guard down, saying the virus would run wild if people pretend the second wave is over.

Deputy Premier James Merlino said the state's much-criticised contact tracing system is now working well.

"It's performing at a level that we absolutely need it to perform, in terms of response and follow-up in 24 hours," he said.

But he is yet to receive a report after Victorian officials visited NSW to look at its contact tracing, held up by the prime minister as the gold standard.

"The advice I have is what we have learned is we compare very, very well," he said.

Australian Associated Press

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