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In Melbourne, 36 suburbs in 10 postcodes will be placed in lockdown with residents ordered to stay home from midnight on Wednesday.
Under stage three restrictions there are only four reasons residents in those suburbs can leave their homes: food and supplies, medical care, exercise, and work or education.
Do you live or work in a hotspot suburb? We have the full list here.
That's all for the blog today - thanks for joining us. Tomorrow, Orietta Guerrera will be blogging live coronavirus updates throughout the day.
It's been a huge day of news. Here is a summary of the major developments of the day:
The greatest COVID-19 threat to NSW comes from an increasingly complacent community within its own borders, Premier Gladys Berejiklian warns, as she resists calls to close the border to Victoria's worsening coronavirus resurgence.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.Credit: Getty
Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews announced lockdowns across Melbourne's 10 coronavirus hotspot suburbs would be enforced from Wednesday midnight in a move that will be welcomed by the NSW government.
NSW recorded just five new cases - all returned travellers in hotel quarantine - in the last 24-hour reporting period, but health authorities maintain the virus is spreading by stealth in the community.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said that he understood the situation would be difficult for families and businesses in those ten postcodes but said it was critical to curbing the spread.
He said schools would remain open for now, with "no real evidence that school attendance is a big driver of the spike in case".
"This going to be deeply disruptive for those 10 postcodes," Mr Andrews said. "It will be deeply painful and damaging for those businesses involved. We need every Victorian family to follow the rules. We need every Victorian family, particularly those in these lockdown postcodes to know and understand that whilst this is deeply inconvenient for you, you are making a massive contribution for the whole state and indeed the whole nation.
''If you are sick, you cannot go out. The only thing you should be doing if you are sick is getting tested."
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also announced a judicial inquiry into the state's management of hotel quarantine after an "unacceptable" number of infections in the city's north from late May and early June were linked to an infection control breach in the hotel quarantine program.
"The whole way through this, I’ve been upfront with the people of Victoria. And to say I’m disappointed about what’s happened would be an understatement," Mr Andrews said in a statement.
"I have today ordered the establishment of an inquiry, led by a former judge, into the operation of the hotel quarantine program."
The inquiry will report in eight to 10 weeks.
Mr Andrews also warned he could not rule out other suburbs being locked down.
"There is no vaccine for this wildly infectious virus and none of us can afford the act like it is over because we want it to be over," he said.
Simon Schluter took some great photographs during the coronavirus update in Victoria on Tuesday afternoon:
Premier Daniel Andrews during the press conference.Credit: Simon Schluter
The purple backdrop behind politicians for COVID-19 updates has become a common sight for Victorians during the pandemic.Credit: Simon Schluter
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd said that the Commonwealth had encouraged Victoria to seek more support, citing more than 200 members of the Defence Force, assisting on the ground at this time, with more available if needed.
Overnight, Victoria requested an additional 800 people to provide support including 200 clinical staff to carry out testing, 100 people to assist with the on-ground coordination of community engagement and doorknocking, and 500 to assist with further testing, contact tracing and public engagement.
Professor Kidd said the government was “very concerned” about the rate of asymptomatic cases. “Many people are not asymptomatic but have very mild symptoms, which may indicate COVID-19, and this is why it is absolutely essential that anyone who has even the mildest symptoms of fever, cold, flu-like symptoms arrange to get tested and especially for those in the areas of community transmission in Melbourne, stay-at-home waiting for the results,” he said.
He said that anyone who was offered a test should accept it. "My request to all the people in Victoria is if someone approaches you and asks you to please do a test, please comply. These tests are there to protect us all.
''They'll be protecting you and your health and wellbeing. They'll be protecting your family, they'll be protecting the wider community. Testing is a fundamental tenet of the work we're doing."
Perhaps lost among the extraordinary lockdown measures announced in the coronavirus briefing in Victoria this afternoon were Victoria's Chief Health Officers comments on the state's daily tally of coronavirus cases.
Professor Brett Sutton said he was "somewhat reassured" by the reduction in new cases in Victoria on Tuesday, with 64 cases reported compared to 75 on Monday.
"I think the fact that we have done a blitz has genuinely identified almost all cases that are out there," he said. "There are still those that are going through an incubation period that will develop symptoms and will be testing positive in the coming days."
"I absolutely expect more numbers, but I think the testing blitz has identified all of those infectious positive cases and helped us to control numbers."
Professor Sutton warned the state was still on a "knife's edge" of a second wave and he wanted to see the numbers of new infections continue to decline.
"You don't want to have numbers creeping up above 100, which is the highest we got to in the first phase of this," he said.
In Melbourne, 36 suburbs in 10 postcodes will be placed in lockdown with residents ordered to stay home from midnight on Wednesday.
Under stage three restrictions there are only four reasons residents in those suburbs can leave their homes: food and supplies, medical care, exercise, and work or education.
Do you live or work in a hotspot suburb? We have the full list here.
Just a quick note that I am signing off for the day and handing over to my colleague Dani Miletic, who will keep posting updates until the dust settles on these latest announcements.
It's been a very busy day and I've been blogging for longer than anticipated, so I think it's about time I step away and tuck into my slow cooker stew, which has been bubbling away in my kitchen for about nine hours now.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd praised the implementation of the ‘north-west Tasmania model’ into Victoria, and although he conceded that the approach of test, trace, and respond would be harder in a major city, but would save lives.
“The level of testing we’ve seen in Victoria is exception, and unprecedented,” he said.
“The Commonwealth welcomes and supports the actions being taken by the Victorian government.”
He announced that there have been 7834 cases of COVID-19 in Australia, as of midday on Tuesday, with 104 deaths.
Mr Kidd said there had been 71 new cases across the past 24 hours, with five of those in New South Wales, two in Western Australia – all of which were from returning travellers who are in hotel quarantine.
The remaining 64 were all in Victoria.