Australia's second most populous state of สล็อตxoทดลองเล่น Victoria will enter a one-week COVID-19 lockdown forcing its near 7 million residents to remain home except for essential business as authorities struggle to contain a highly-infectious outbreak.

"We're dealing with a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern, which is running faster than we have ever recorded," Victoria state Acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne.

"Unless something drastic happens, this will become increasingly uncontrollable."

Merlino said contact tracers have identified more than 10,000 primary and secondary contacts who would need to quarantine, test and self-isolate, adding "that number will continue to grow and change".

The fresh cluster of infections in Melbourne detected early this week swelled to 26 on Thursday after 12 new cases overnight, while the number of virus-exposed sites rose above 150.

Victoria state Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he "absolutely expects" more positive cases to emerge in the coming days as the variant, first detected in India, was likely to be more virulent than the original strains.