Coronavirus update for Victoria 2 January 2022

There are 472 COVID-19 cases in hospital in Victoria – 52 active cases in ICU, with 22 of those on a ventilator. There are an additional 46 cleared cases in ICU.

More than 5,035,600 vaccine doses have been administered by Victoria’s state-commissioned services. 94.5 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and over have now had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 92.9 per cent have had two doses. This excludes the most recent Commonwealth data.

Victoria was notified of 7,172 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday. All cases were locally acquired. The 10 LGAs with the highest number of new cases are Melbourne, Brimbank, Casey, Port Phillip, Hume, Whittlesea, Greater Dandenong, Stonnington, Wyndham and Melton.

All locations containing new cases will be published today at Victorian COVID-19 data.

Community sample testing of positive cases for the Omicron variant indicates that it is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in Victoria. It appears that 76 per cent results of samples collected over the Christmas period were the Omicron variant – further testing is to confirm this is being undertaken over the next week.

There are 31,461 active cases in Victoria. The total number of confirmed cases in Victoria since the beginning of the pandemic is 190,999.

Sadly, the Department was notified yesterday of three deaths of people aged in their 60s and 70s. This brings the total number of deaths in Victoria since the pandemic began to 1,537.

48,252 COVID-19 tests were processed yesterday. The total number of tests performed in Victoria since the pandemic began is 17,468,744.

There are currently more than 13,000 active close contacts in isolation in Victoria.

Updates

New testing and isolation requirements

New arrangements for the testing and isolation of close contacts came into effect in Victoria from 11.59pm on Thursday 30 December 2021.

The new test, trace, isolate and quarantine arrangements have been established in the context of high case numbers and the Omicron variant.

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