Victoria’s health department says a lag in reporting is behind its highest death toll since late 2020.
The state had 7810 new cases on Saturday with a shocking 41 deaths reported.
It is the highest death toll in the state since September 2020 when a record 59 people lost their lives to Covid in a single day.
But the health department’s deputy secretary, Kate Matson, said a lag in notifications was behind Saturday’s figure.
“Unfortunately it was a particularly high number yesterday and that’s very sad, but nothinxjmtzywg has changed,” she said.
“Sometimes there can be a lag in notifications that may cover a period of weeks if there’s a late registration with a death, or if there is a coroner’s investigation or if the diagnosis is made post mortem.
“The 41 reported today is a really sad, tragic high number, but it may not correlate to the number of people hospitalised.”
Victoria has seen a steady decline in Covid infections in recent weeks, with authorities now believing the state has passed its peak in the current Omicron outbreak.
Ms Matson said the daily Covid numbers now reflected modelling and would be monitored over the next couple of weeks.
“I think 8000 is about where we’d expected, it’s in line with the modelling, she said.
“It’s too early to say. We’d expect fairly stable numbers or cases dropping.”
The state on Saturday had 687 people in hospitals with coronavirus, while the latest figures have 80 in intensive care, of which 31 are on ventilators.
It comes after Victoria recorded 11,240 cases and 752 hospitalisations on Friday.
On Thursday there were 12,157 cases and 707 in hospital.
Victoria has reversed its ban on non-urgent elective surgeries with some private and day procedure centres to resume at half capacity from next week.
From February 7 Victorian authorities will allow private hospitals and day procedure centres to recommence surgery to up to 50 per cent of their normal practice levels.
It comes after the government banned all non trauma or category one surgeries amid the spread of Omicron.
If numbers continue to fall, authorities will look at continuing further elective surgeries in the state systems in the weeks ahead, with a goal to initially operate at 75 per cent capacity in regional areas and 50 per cent in the metropolitan public health system.
