VICTORIA will stay in lockdown beyond the original five days after recording twelve more cases and exposure sites appearing across the state.<\/p>\n
There were 13 new local infections in the 24 hours to Monday morning, one of which is a case in Mildura, previously announced by authorities.<\/p>\n
Premier Daniel Andrews on Tuesday said there were too many chains of transmission for the lockdown to lift at the original time of midnight Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“We are running alongside this virus, but we’re not yet in front of it,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n
“We’ve gone hard and early and I think we have avoided, in fact I know we have avoided something altogether worse.”<\/p>\n
He said testing figures, exposure sites and test results today will guide the extension and he hoped to tell Victorians just how long that will be on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
All the new cases are linked to the current outbreaks of the Delta variant in the state, which originated in NSW.<\/p>\n
Victoria also recorded one new infection acquired overseas, currently in hotel quarantine, bringing its total number of active cases to 81.<\/p>\n
There are now 15,800 close contacts and more than 250 exposure sites, including sites on Phillip Island in the south of the state to the Mallee district in the northwest.<\/p>\n
There were 54,839 test results returned during the 24 hours to Monday and 14,758 vaccines administered.<\/p>\n
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