Victoria has added another 1638 COVID-19 cases in a single day along with two deaths.
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Case numbers may have dropped sightly for the second day since Tuesday's national record of 1763 new daily cases, but the expected high numbers continue.
The two new deaths reported on Thursday morning bring the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 1370.
The number of active infections in the state is now 15,074.
The state broke its record for COVID-19 testing by more than 6000 tests after more than 77,000 people were tested overnight.
Minister for Child Protection, Disability, Ageing and Carers Luke Donnellan said the state vaccination hubs delivered 36,672 vaccines yesterday.
"Many more thousands were administered by GPs and community pharmacies," he said.
There are currently 564 people are hospitalised with the virus, 115 are in intensive care and of those 74 are on ventilators.
Of those hospitalised, 66 per cent were unvaccinated, 27 per cent were partially vaccinated and seven per cent were fully vaccinated.
Deputy chief health officer Ben Cowie said many of the cases were connected to existing cases.
"On a positive note, the majority of these have been linked to existing cases," Professor Cowie said.
"In terms of some of the larger outbreaks that we are responding to currently, there were 11 new cases in Greater Shepparton, eights known contacts and we are investigating the source of a further three.
"There were eight new cases in Ballarat, again, all linked to known cases.
Details of the location have not yet been released.
There were 16 new cases in Geelong.
"And of note, 11 new cases in the Mount Alexander Shire," he said.
"The acquisition source of these cases is currently unknown, but investigations are under way and they are spread across two households."
He also said a decision on Moorabool's lockdown, due to end at midnight Friday would be made tomorrow but that the use of lockdowns would decrease as vaccination rates rose.
"We are seeing increasing case numbers in many parts of the regions," Professor Cowie said.
In Melbourne authorities are racing to identify all vulnerable young patients who were exposed to a COVID-19 outbreak at a Melbourne children's hospital cancer ward.
A patient's parent spent at least four days at the Royal Children's Hospital in Parkville while infectious, with the exposure period stretching from October 1 to October 4.
A hospital spokeswoman said contact tracing was still underway on Wednesday night, and as a result these dates may change.
IN OTHER NEWS:
It comes as Victoria recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic's third wave, after 11 people were reported to have died with COVID-19 on Wednesday. The state also reported 1420 new locally acquired cases.
The state government has announced Victorians stranded in the ACT and NSW will be able to return home as border restrictions eased overnight.
Areas considered red zones in NSW and the ACT have been downgraded to orange zones, allowing residents and non-residents to enter Victoria if they take a test within 72 hours of arrival and isolate until receiving a negative result.
Meanwhile, extreme risk zone classifications for locked-down areas such as Greater Sydney have been downgraded to red, meaning people can return if they isolate at home for 14 days.
- with AAP
