Plan to run elective surgery at full capacity in Victoria in less than a fortnight

Victoria's elective surgery restrictions are set to be eased further from Monday as part of a plan to return elective surgery to running at full capacity in less than a fortnight.

Public hospitals in metropolitan Melbourne will be allowed to perform Category 2 surgery from Monday, February 21, Health Minister Martin Foley has announced via written statement.

It will be the first time the surgery takes places in Melbourne since restrictions were introduced in early January to help hospitals cope with COVID-19 patients.

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Mr Foley will "consider further changes to allow all surgery to resume" from February 28, the government has announced in a statement.

Each hospital will assess their own capacity based on staff availability and COVID-19 demands, according to the statement, with private hospitals able to up their rate of elective surgery performed as long as they can still support public hospitals responding to COVID-19 demands.

Another rule-change coming on from Monday will also allow private hospitals in Melbourne to perform up to 75 per cent of all elective surgery.

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Private hospitals in regional Victoria will be able to return to running elective surgery at full capacity from Monday.

Mr Foley said the state's declining COVID-19 hospitalisations and improvement in staff availability had mad way for the changes.

"We're in a strong position to remove the remaining restrictions and ensure delayed appointments can be rescheduled as quickly as possible," he said.

The changes come as Victoria has recorded 8149 cases of COVID-19 overnight and a further 18 deaths.

The number of people in hospital with the virus has dropped to 397, with 68 people in intensive care and 13 on ventilators.

There are currently 1400 hospital staff unable to work due to COVID-19.

Code Brown emergency measures which were in place across Victoria's healthcare system were only ended on Monday.