One coronavirus recovery recorded in Warrnambool

Department of Health and Human Services data has recorded an additional active case in Colac Otway Shire, which comes after another Australian Lamb Colac worker tested positive to the virus yesterday.

More than 100 close contacts of the Geelong-based worker were tested yesterday and are self-isolating at the direction of DHHS.

Barwon Health spokesperson Kate Bibby said there have been no further positive results from the ALC workers and close contacts tested so far.

"Testing and contact tracing is underway to identify the source of the infection," she said.

The new case is not linked to the previous ALC cluster that linked to nearly 100 cases of the virus in the community.

Geelong has 66 cases down from 74, Bendigo remains unchanged at 23 cases along with Ballarat at six cases.

There are 13 cases in Moorabool, five in Surf Coast Shire and two in Horsham.

There are still zero cases in Moyne Shire, Glenelg Shire and Southern Grampians Shire.

14,572 people have recovered from the virus in Victoria.

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Earlier, 11am: Victoria has suffered a sharp rise in coronavirus deaths with 24 new fatalities, taking the state toll to 462 and national figure to 549.

Australia's worst daily figure of 25 was recorded on August 17.

Victoria registered 149 new cases of the virus for Wednesday. It's the third straight day the number has been well below 200.

The figures come as the state government is having to negotiate with crossbenchers to extend the Victoria's state of emergency.

The deaths include a woman in her 60s, three men in their 70s, three women and seven men in their 80s, and six women and four men in their 90s.

21 of the latest deaths are linked to aged care.

There are 578 Victorians in hospital, with 39 receiving intensive care and 16 are on ventilators.

There have been 13,480 more tests carried out since yesterday, revealing 55 more mystery cases with an unknown source.

Of the 3488 active cases in the state, 434 are healthcare workers which Premier Daniel Andrews said reflected numbers "stabilised and coming down" in the industry.

There has been another drop in active cases in regional Victoria at 203.

"Numbers are low in regional Victoria and we want to keep it that way," Premier Andrews said.

"We are grateful to everyone in regional Victoria coming forward and getting tested.

"Regardless of your postcode as soon as you have symptoms please come forward and get tested. It's a powerful thing you can do to support everyone across the community against this wildly infectious virus."

The Premier said results were coming back in just under one day because total numbers were down.

There are 50 active cases in disability facility settings, and 1487 in aged care.

He said discussions with the crossbench on extending Victoria's state of emergency for another 12 months were progressing.

"It's very important that after September 13 we have the ability to make rules to get people back on their feet and put strength into the Victorian economy and communities we are so well known for," Premier Andrews said.

"The rules will not be the same rules we are living under right now, but will allow the chief health officer and his team to continue working and making decisions based on science to underpin us opening up.

"Imagine a business opening up and we don't have the power to keep people with the virus at home, and this gets away from us again, imagine the impact across the board.

"These are to make sure people with virus, we simply can't have an opening up strategy without the ability to make those sorts of rules. It's not an extension of the hard stage four lockdown, we're trying to get away from those.

"We can't go to stage four to stage zero without any rules in place.

"We're having productive discussions with the cross bench that protects public health and allows us to plan for the future with some certainty and have rules that are proportionate for a longer period of time."

A consortium led by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, one of the state's leading research institutes, is using antibodies to prevent coronavirus from infecting human cells under laboratory conditions.

Associate professors Wai-Hong Tham and Julian Elliott spoke at the Wednesday press conference, unveiling the new research funded by the state government.

"We've been looking through billions of antibodies to target the virus spike proteins that enter human cells," Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Associate Professor Wai-Hong Tham said.

"We can use antibodies to block the virus entry and therefore virus infection.

"Antibodies are already used to treat cancers and other immune disorders, so we think this will be an effective treatment for COVID-19."

Clinical trials are expected to begin next year.

Monash University associate professor Elliott said they have been working with 30 national peak clinical groups to develop evidence-based guidelines so frontline clinicians can have clear guidance on treatment and care for COVID-19 patients.

"We work around the clock every night searching around the world for any COVID-related research, then feed that through to panels who are then updating modelling every week," he said. "It's a model called living evidence."

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