Eligible Victorians with COVID-19 who are at higher risk of becoming seriously ill can access medicine to help prevent them needing hospital care. General practitioners can assess a person’s need for COVID-19 medication.
For more information, refer to COVID-19 medicines.
Vaccines
6,250,655 vaccine doses have been administered by Victoria’s state-commissioned services, with 1,715 doses administered yesterday at state-run centres.
67.5 per cent of Victorians aged 16 and over have had three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. 94.6 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and over have had two doses.
Testing
17,473 PCR tests were processed yesterday. The total number of PCR tests performed in Victoria since the pandemic began is 21,062,550.
Advice for cases and contacts
Helpful information is available online for cases and household, social, workplace, education and other contacts.
See the checklists and recommend them to your patients.
General advice
COVID-19 symptoms include fever, sore throat, cough, shortness of breath and loss or change in sense of smell or taste. If you are experiencing symptoms, wear a fitted face mask when you get tested.
The Department publishes expected wait times at testing sites as well as updated information about locations and hours of operation at Where to get tested.
For more information call the 24-hour Coronavirus Hotline at 1800 675 398 or visit Coronavirus (COVID-19) Victoria.
Current advice to clinicians
Notifications to the department of a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 can be done online. You can submit an online form to our public health team, rather than calling us, saving you time and resolving your case load more efficiently.
COVID-19 testing criteria
Practitioners should test any patients who meet the clinical criteria below:
- Fever OR chills in the absence of an alternative diagnosis that explains the clinical presentation*
- Acute respiratory infection (e.g., cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose, or loss or changes in sense of smell or taste)
- Note: testing is also recommended for people with new onset of other clinical symptoms consistent with COVID-19** AND who are from the following cohorts: close contacts of a confirmed case of COVID-19; those who have returned from overseas in the past 14 days; or those who are healthcare or aged care workers. Testing is recommended for those cohorts with onset of other clinical symptoms**.
- *Clinical discretion applies including consideration of the potential for co-infection (e.g. concurrent infection with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza)
- **headache, myalgia, stuffy nose, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea.
If a symptomatic patient that presents for testing, confirms exposure to a known COVID-19 case within the past 14 days, and the outbreak definition is met, the test sample is to be treated as an ‘outbreak sample’.
