PREMIER Daniel Andrews says Victoria is 'well-placed' for changes to stage four restrictions tomorrow night but can't confirm further details yet.
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There were two new locally-acquired coronavirus cases recorded in Victoria in the past 24 hours.
Both are primary household close contacts of previously confirmed cases linked to the Holiday Inn and the private dining event, at 426 Sydney Road, Coburg.
There are also two new cases in hotel quarantine.
Premier Andrews said the public health team was retesting all 38 attendees of that private dining event.
He said the low figures proved the 'circuit-breaker' lockdown was working.
"I don't want to be celebrating the fact that we have additional cases. You'd always prefer no new cases, but it is fair to say that with just two contained additional community cases today, this strategy is working," he said.
"We are well-placed to be able to make changes tomorrow night.
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"I'm not in a position to definitively commit to that, because these next 24 hours will, of course, be crucial.
"However, with a relatively small number of new cases, the excellent work that our contact tracing teams have done, the work of lab technicians and so many other people, we are very well placed, but we won't know and we won't be able to make a final call on that until some time tomorrow."
He said the announcements would be state-wide not region-specific.
"As I said yesterday in some detail, you can't set up a ring of steel in five minutes," he said.
"If you give people any notice whatsoever in Melbourne that there would be a stage four lockdown, logic tells you - and indeed past practice tells you - that very significant numbers of people from metropolitan Melbourne would have travelled into regional Victoria.
"We don't have cases in regional Victoria and we're determined to keep it that way."
23,950 test results were received over the past 24 hours.
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The government says it's examining alternative models of mandatory quarantine, including a purpose-built accommodation hub outside Melbourne's CBD.
"This will be based in large part on the Howard Springs model," Premier Andrews said.
"It would be a cabin-style, village-style environment, where there would be fresh air, where there would be not zero risk but lower risk.
"The two obvious candidates - Avalon Airport, you've got space and you've got an international terminal and of course Melbourne Airport as well. We will pursue both of those."
DHHS testing lead Jeroen Weimar said there were now around 59 household and social primary close contacts across the Holiday Inn cases and 499 hotel quarantine staff and residents, all of whom were in isolation.
There are 1189 primary close contacts linked to the exposure sites and 1191 linked to Terminal 4 at Melbourne Airport.
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"Yesterday's new case, somebody who works in a number of mental health units with The Alfred and Royal Melbourne at two of our northern suburb sites," he said.
"As of last nights we identified 70 primary close contact across those units.
"It's been a phenomenal piece of work done by the teams at Royal Melbourne and Alfred over the last 24 hours or so. We have not just tested those 70 individuals but also a whole number of other people, potential secondary contacts, in and around those mental health units.
"Results are still coming in but we've got over 114 negative results out of those broader populations, including the majority of those 70."
100 primary close contacts have been listed including 72 people from a primary school in Ballarat who were on a school excursion trip to the market at the time on the Thursday in question.
Mr Weimar said 99 per cent of new primary close contacts who were identified on February 12 were notified by contact tracing teams within the 48-hour national benchmark and just under 850,000 text messages to people across various suburbs alerting them to the various exposure sites.
"As the Premier has said, we've picked up two new positive cases today but because they're in our primary close contact network we're not excessively concerned and that's the pattern we want to see," he said.
"It's so important to have a comprehensive picture over the next few days as we go forward."
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