Victoria's daily coronavirus count has fallen below 200 for the first time in five weeks, but the Chief Health Officer warns the downward trend could plateau if outbreaks in aged care, hospitals and disability services are not brought under control.
The state has recorded 179 new coronavirus cases — its lowest daily total since July 13.
A further nine Victorians with COVID-19 have died, taking the state's pandemic death toll to 385.
The latest fatalities include one man in his 60s, one woman in her 70s, two women and two men in their 80s, two women in their 90s and one man in his 100s.
Seven of the nine deaths were linked to aged care outbreaks.
Of Friday's new cases, 15 are in regional Victoria.
Premier Daniel Andrews said Friday's lower case numbers "show that the strategy is working", as this weekend marks three weeks since a curfew was imposed on Melbourne.
"We are all pleased to see a 1 in front of these additional case numbers, and to a certain extent it is perhaps at that level a little quicker than I thought it might be," he said.
Workplace transmission numbers may prove 'harder to shift'
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said it was "terrific" that case numbers were going down, but said the state would enter a challenging phase over the next couple of weeks.
"Even as community transmission goes down, those complex outbreak settings that are really hard to get on top of transmission — in aged care, the disability sector, even in our health services — they might end up with a baseline level of transmission that is harder to shift," he said.
"So even though we're seeing numbers below 200 today, there might be a flattening off in the next couple of weeks if we don't really focus all our attention on those complex settings."
Professor Sutton said he would be "very relaxed" if daily cases were in the single digits by September 13, when stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne were due to end.
"I'd love us to be below 50. I would be really gratified if it were in single figures but I'm not convinced that it will be. I think it's possible, but I think there are really significant challenges to get there," he said.
"It is just way too early for us to talk about what easing will look like, or even to be definitive about when that will be," Mr Andrews said.
"That's not designed to in any way dispirit people or take away a sense of hope. We can be hopeful about these numbers, we can be positive about these numbers but that can't be accompanied by any sense of complacency."
The Premier said he was pleased to see the number of test results received over the past day was above 20,000, but again encouraged people with even mild symptoms to get tested.
Plan to stop care workers spreading virus to other sites
Mr Andrews also announced a Victorian Disability Response Centre would be set up to mirror the arrangements in aged care.
He said $15 million would be provided to encourage workers in the disability sector to stop working across multiple sites.
The measure will be jointly funded by the Victorian and federal governments.
"That will be about compensating workers who may be out of pocket because they only work at one site rather than the multitude of sites that would be their normal working week," he said.
There are currently 62 coronavirus cases linked to 60 disability facilities in Victoria.
Outbreaks in hospitals and among healthcare workers remain of significant concern.
There are 668 active cases in healthcare workers, down from 753 in the previous 24-hour period, and many more staff are unable to work after being identified as close contacts.
One of the latest outbreaks involves Peninsula Health, which has seen 51 staff at Frankston Hospital diagnosed with COVID-19.
At least 17 patients who spent time at Peninsula Health's Golf Links Road Rehabilitation Centre have also tested positive.
Professor Sutton said there was no "magic number" that would trigger the end of lockdown, and he would look at a range of factors to determine which restrictions might be lifted first, and when.
"We are looking to get to zero community transmission if it is at all feasible," he said.
"It's one thing to get to 10 cases but if they're all mystery cases — we don't know where they've come from and we don't know exactly where to focus our attention and energy in addressing them — that's a trickier problem than an outbreak of 10 cases where they're all known, where the chains of transmission are well established."
Meanwhile, police have fined 144 people for breaching lockdown restrictions, including 30 for failing to wear a mask and 45 for curfew breaches.
Among those fined were a group of men caught driving from Werribee to Dandenong to visit friends and a Tarneit man who was found at Heidelberg station and could not provide a valid reason to be out.
