Victoria records big spike in cases

Martin Foley made the admission on Friday before cases surged once again, breaking a new record on Saturday.

The figure is the state’s highest daily tally since the pandemic began.

He said the more infectious strain had rapidly spread since arriving in Victoria earlier this month.

There are now 451 infected people in Victorian hospitals, with 51 active in intensive care and 21 on ventilators.

More than 93 per cent of eligible Victorians are fully vaccinated and the state has 24,161 active cases.

A total of 63,026 tests were taken on Wednesday and 2731 vaccines were administered at state hubs.

Saturday’s tally is a jump from the 5919 new cases and seven deaths recorded on Friday.

NSW also broke its record for daily cases on Saturday with 22,577 new infections and five deaths.

There are 901 people in hospital with the virus, up from 832 on Friday, while ten more people have been admitted to intensive care taking the total to 79.

In NSW, 95 per cent of people aged 16 and over have received a first dose of the vaccine, while 93.6 per cent are fully vaccinated.

There were 119,278 tests conducted in the state in the past 24 hours.

Scorching temperatures are set to force the closure of some Victorian testing sites over the weekend.

The impending move is expected to cause chaos for the already embattled system that has tested hundreds of thousands of people over the past week as Covid infections soar.

Victoria’s Department of Health gave the warning on Thursday, noting testing centres operating from outdoor tents would be the most likely affected.

Temperature inside the tents can rise as much as 10 degrees higher than outside in addition to staff working in full PPE.

The mercury is expected to hit 35C in Melbourne on New Year’s Day.

Originally published as Victoria records 7442 new Covid-19 cases and nine deaths