Australia: Victoria spike continues, easing roadmap imminent

Victoria on Monday announced a further 41 people had died from the coronavirus as the Australian government urged the hot spot state to announce plans to lift lockdown restrictions.

Victorian state Premier Daniel Andrews said 33 of those deaths occurred prior to Sunday.

Andrews added that 73 new COVID-19 infections were recorded in the latest 24-hour period.

The death toll eclipses the previous record of 25 set a fortnight ago.

However, the tally of new infections is the lowest since 67 new cases were recorded at the end of June.

A six-week lockdown in the state capital Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, is due to be relaxed on September 13.

But Andrews told reporters his government will announce a roadmap on September 6, on how and when to ease restrictions.

"It is too early today to settle that roadmap and to lock that in as it were. Another week's data is critically important to make sure that the strategy continues to work," Andrews said.

Australia's Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Monday he disagreed with the Victorian government that it was too early to announce plans to reopen the economy.

He said 400,000 people in Victoria were set to lose their jobs or see their hours cut to zero because of the restrictions, and called on Andrews to outline a way forward.

"If these devastating numbers from Treasury are not enough to bring forward a definitive plan from Daniel Andrews, I don't know what will," Frydenberg told reporters in Canberra.

Frydenberg pointed to a Treasury Department forecast that in the next three months more people in Victoria will be receiving pandemic employment subsidies than the rest of Australia combined.

Australia pays employers an allowance known as Job Keeper to continue paying staff who have no work to do.

Consumer spending has fallen 30% in Victoria due to the lockdown compared with only 3% across the rest of Australia.