There are 487 COVID-19 cases in hospital in Victoria - with 49 active cases in ICU, including 20 on a ventilator, and an additional 30 cleared cases in ICU.
This is the first time since 3 January this year that the number of COVID-19 cases in hospital in Victoria has been below 500.
5,819,453 vaccine doses have been administered by Victoria's state-commissioned services, with 15,429 administered yesterday at state-run centres. 591 of the doses administered yesterday were for children aged 5 to 11 years.
49.9 per cent of Victorians aged 18 and over have had three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. 93.7 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and over have had two doses. 51.8 per cent of Victorians aged between 5 and 11 years have had one dose.
7,224 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded yesterday. This includes:
- 4,679 who tested positive on a Rapid Antigen Test
- 2,545 who returned a positive result on a PCR test.
Sadly, the Department was notified yesterday of 19 deaths of people aged in their 70s, 80s, 90s and 100s. Of those deaths, 12 occurred in the past week and all 19 occurred in the past fortnight.
This brings the total number of deaths in Victoria since the pandemic began to 2,266.
There are 55,102 active cases in Victoria.
19,864 PCR tests were processed yesterday. The total number of PCR tests performed in Victoria since the pandemic began is 19,193,507.
Updates
Further confirmation Omicron is Victoria's dominant strain
Extensive genomic test results taken from more than 10,000 community samples over two months from early December last year to early February have further confirmed the Omicron variant is the dominant strain of COVID-19 in Victoria.
From the 10,222 samples that were sequenced, 98 per cent represented the Omicron variant of concern.
Lifting of the Pandemic Code Brown alert and increase to elective surgery
The Department of Health is working closely with health services to lift the coordinated Pandemic Code Brown from midday this Monday 14 February, while continuing to support individual hospitals as needed.
A further increase to non-urgent elective surgery will also begin from Monday 14 February - including private hospitals being able to perform up to 50 per cent of all elective surgery in metropolitan Melbourne and up to 75 per cent of all elective surgery in regional areas. Public hospitals in regional Victoria will be able to resume all category two elective surgery, dependent on workforce availability.
In addition, more than 1,000 Victorians have applied to help vaccinate people across the state as part of a push to expand the vaccination workforce to include health students, retired nurses and other trained workers.
