Covid-19 coronavirus: Another 177 cases today in Victoria, Australia

LaManna Direct supermarket in Essendon Fields is dealing with an outbreak.

Victoria has recorded 177 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, but its chief health officer says the state may not yet have hit its peak.

Of the new Victorian cases, 25 are linked to known outbreaks, one is in hotel quarantine, and 151 are still under investigation.

Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton revealed some figures around how many cases were linked to outbreaks:

• 6 cases linked to LaManna supermarket in Essendon;

• 12 cases at Somerville Meats in Tottenham;

• 8 cases at Cenvic Construction involved in building the Riverina apartments in Footscray;

• 26 cases at Menarock Life aged care facility in Essendon;

• 13 at Glendale Aged Care in Werribee;

• 144 linked to Al-Taqwa College in Truganina; and

• 2 cases at Japara Central Park aged care in Windsor.

Sutton there was a "small bit of optimism" in today's numbers and the number of new cases is much lower than the peak of 288 cases recorded on Friday.

"I'm not going to be complacent about today's number. It's great it's lower than our peak," he said.

"But it may not be our peak yet. So I would like to see a week of decreasing numbers before I come and say I have greater confident about the direction we're going in."

As a reflection of the actions that people took a week or to ago, Sutton said it was probably a good sign.

"This is exactly what we'll see as people do the right thing and it will continue to drive down if those behaviours are sustained. So that's a small bit of optimism in today's numbers," he said.

In NSW, eight new cases have been linked to a pub outbreak in Sydney and another pub has closed over links to the cluster.

Some 13 coronavirus cases have now been linked to the Crossroads Hotel, in Sydney's Casula. The Picton Hotel has also closed after one of those in the new cluster went to the pokies over three days.

It is understood the 13 Defence Force members visited the Crossroads Hotel while infected people were there. The group stopped at the pub on their way to Albury-Wodonga border. It is understood they also visited a fast food restaurant on their journey.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has said NSW Health is "getting very close" to identifying the source at the heart of the growing Sydney pub cluster.

Hunt refused to speculate on whether the cluster could be linked to Victoria's worsening COVID-19 situation – where Premier Daniel Andrews announced another 273 infections yesterday after a shocking week of record rises in cases.