Mr Foley said genomic sequencing had directly linked Victoria’s outbreak to the NSW outbreak.
There are now 29 active cases in Victoria.
Two more cases were confirmed in returning international travellers in hotel quarantine. Victoria now has 29 active cases of the virus.
There were 18,337 COVID-19 tests completed across Friday. Victoria closed its border to all of NSW from 11.59pm on Friday, with the whole state becoming a “red zone”, meaning residents can not enter Victoria and will not be allowed to enter hotel quarantine unless they have exceptional circumstances.
The situation applies to people travelling from regional NSW. Those who have been to Greater Sydney, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains had already been barred from entering Victoria.
Victoria’s testing chief Jeroen Weimar said Victoria did not create the hotel quarantine system to support returned travellers from NSW.
“Let’s be very clear – we do not have capacity to put hundreds of people into hotel quarantine because they elected to come home late,” he said on Friday.
“If there are people who’ve gone to NSW, we did not design and set up a hotel quarantine system to enable people who’ve gone on holidays in NSW to come back a bit later.”
Long queues have formed at Victoria’s testing sites and Mr Foley staff were being recalled to help provide additional capacity.
More to come.
