Victoria makes COVID-19 testing mandatory for all returned overseas travellers

Victoria is set to follow New South Wales in making COVID-19 testing mandatory for all returned overseas travellers.

As of today, anyone who refuses to submit to COVID-19 testing will be forced to stay in hotel quarantine for a further ten days.

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All returned travellers who left hotel quarantine today had been tested, Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed.

"And everybody who leaves from right now, if they don't agree to a test, then they will be in our care for a total of 24 days - not 14 days."

"I don't think that too many people are going to make that choice."

The move comes after it emerged that close to a third of those undertaking mandatory hotel quarantines in Victoria were refusing to be tested – although the premier insisted the current rate was actually much lower.

"We've been achieving well into the 80s (per cent of people tested), and the latest advice is as high as 85 per cent," he said.

It is hoped a new, less invasive saliva test introduced from today would act as a further incentive to take the test, particularly for families with young children who would find testing "so much easier, so much less painful".

Mr Andrews said that parents refusing to submit their "very small children" to nasal and back-of-the-throat swabs had driven a large part of the testing refusal, but the new saliva test made that a "non-issue".

It comes as Victoria records 49 new COVID-19 cases today, an increase of eight on yesterday's figures and the highest daily total since April 2.

Just four of the new cases have been linked to known outbreaks, with the source of infection still under investigation in the remaining 45.

The number of people being treated in hospital has also increased from five to seven, with one person seriously unwell in Intensive Care.