Health authorities are pleading for Victorians to adhere to the state’s circuit-breaker lockdown, with more than 10,000 close contacts already linked to the current outbreak.
One of those cases is currently in intensive care.
Mr Merlino said the strain spreading throughout Melbourne is highly infectious and the rate it is spreading has never been seen before.
“In the last day, we’ve seen more evidence we’re dealing with a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern, which is running faster than we have ever recorded,” Mr Merlino said.
“We have identified in excess of 10,000 primary and secondary contacts who will need to either quarantine, or test and isolate, and that number will continue to grow and change.
“Our public health experts’ primary concern is how fast this variant is moving.
“We’ve seen overseas how difficult that movement can be to control.
“Here in Victoria, we’re seeing not only how quick it is, but how contagious it is as well.”
Mr Merlino said the vaccine rollout is not where it should be and if more people were coming forward to get the jab, Victoria could have been looking at a very different situation right now.
“If we make the wrong choice now, if we wait too long, this thing will get away from us,” he said.
“The number of cases has doubled in 24 hours – Unless something drastic happens, this will become increasingly uncontrollable.
“With 10,000 primary and secondary contacts, new cases and more than 150 exposure sites right around the state of Victoria, we need to act now.”
Mr Merlino warned while some individuals who are highly infectious don’t shed or transmit the virus, there are others who can spread it and have attended high-risk locations.
“If you combine a highly infectious individual with high risk transmission settings – bars, clubs, and workplace – when you have highly infectious people operating in higher risk settings, we do have transmission,” Mr Merlino said.
Mr Merlino said contact tracers are identifying and locking down first, second and third ring contacts within a 24-hour period – something never done before.
“That’s the fastest our contact tracers have ever moved within a 24-hour period,” he said.
More than 40,400 people came forward to get tested yesterday as queues continue to swamp testing clinics today.
This content first appear on 9news