Victoria’s Cases Climb As Changes To Close Contact Definitions Kick In

Victoria's cases continue to grow with 5919 new infections reported on Friday and seven lives lost to Covid-related illnesses.

It marks the third consecutive day the state has reported a new daily record for Covid cases since the pandemic began.

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There are currently 28,044 active coronavirus cases, with 428 people in hospital, while 54 of those are in ICU and 21 are on ventilators.

Another 43 people are in intensive care with Covid, but the health Department have confirmed their infections are no longer considered active.

The new cases were detected from 66,774 swabs collected on Thursday, while only 3,798 vaccine doses were administered at state-run hubs.

There are 93 per cent of Victorians aged over 12 now fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday announced changes to close contact definitions and testing requirements across each State and Territory.

The new reclassification has a close contact as a household contact of a confirmed case only.

A household contact is considered someone who lives with a case or has spent more than four hours with them in a house, accommodation or care facility setting.

“So, you are only a close contact if you are, effectively, living with someone or have been in an accommodation setting with someone for more than four hours with someone who has actually got Covid,” he said.

“Omicron requires us to undertake a change of how we are managing the pandemic, and we need to reset how we think about the pandemic, and how we manage ourselves and the things we need to do as governments,” Mr Morrison said.

The changes came into effect in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT at midnight Thursday, while Tasmania will follow suit on January 1.

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