THE Mildura region reported 115 new COVID-19 infections on Friday to increase total active cases to 777, a record.
Victoria reported 34,846 cases and 18 deaths.
Swan Hill had 23 confirmed new cases but total cases remained stable at 247.
Acting Health Minister James Merlino said 60 per cent of deaths due to COVID were unvaccinated adults aged over 50.
He said half the state’s 112 patients in ICU with COVID were unvaccinated.
The Victorian Government also announced two medi-hotels had been established in Melbourne for COVID patients to ease pressure on the hospital system.
The medi-hotels, created by converting two quarantine hotels, will have capacity for 300 COVID patients requiring lower- level care, with the first patients to be transferred on Monday.
While cases in the state were likely to “continue to rise” in coming weeks, Mr Merlino said there was no change to the current green traffic light setting for hospitals.
Despite the number of unvaccinated people in hospital, Mr Merlino said there were no plans to introduce restrictions on the movement of unvaccinated people.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said modelling indicated cases in NSW would be “plateauing next week”. But Ms Chant said there was still a high number of COVID patients in hospitals.
The state had 2525 people in hospital and 184 patients in ICU overnight, while 63,018 new cases were confirmed, along with 29 deaths.
Wentworth Shire’s COVID case total in the past four weeks was 87.
NSW and Victoria have yet to confirm their back-to-school plans, but Mr Merlino and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said more rapid antigen tests were on the way.
Mr Merlino said Victoria would receive 44 million rapid tests in the next several weeks, while Mr Perrottet said NSW had procured 50 million tests.
Mr Perrottet said he had confidence there would be enough tests to satisfy the return-to-school plan, which would be finalised next week.
