The new cases follow a record 725 new infections announced on Wednesday, which was Victoria's darkest day yet, with a staggering 15 deaths recorded in 24 hours.

Eight new deaths - four in aged care - have been confirmed by Premier Daniel Andrews on Thursday, bringing the total to 170.

Two men in their 60s, three men and two women in their 80s and one woman in her 90s lost their battle with the deadly disease that has crippled the world since earlier this year.

Victoria now has 13,469 cases in total - 7449 of those are active - and a further 25,000 tests were conducted on Wednesday.

Ballarat woke to some new rules on Thursday morning, which will be enforced for at least six weeks.

Regional Victorians now only have four reasons to leave the home:

Read the full amount of rules HERE.

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With red meat production centres set to reduce operations to 66 per cent, Mr Andrews urged people not to panic-buy.

"You may not necessarily be able to get exactly the cut of meat that you want, but you will get what you need..." he said.

"It'll only make things harder if people who have the means to do it, go and buy enormous quantities of food. That'll just mean that other people, potentially, don't get the things that they need. That's why the supermarkets have put a number of buying limits in place."

Chicken producers will operate at 80 per cent.

"All of these measures are designed to drive down to the lowest numbers of workers we can practically get to without at the same time delivering a shortage of products," Mr Andrews said.

From Thursday, people in metropolitan Melbourne allowed to work on-site are required to show a permit or official work ID if they are by stopped by police to prove they are allowed to leave their homes.

Under the stage four rules, businesses caught issuing permits to workers who do not meet the requirements face fines of up to $99,123, while individuals can be fined up to $19,826.

But a permitted list worker list was only posted to the Victorian Department of Health website about 11pm on Wednesday, an hour before the measures came into effect.

Retailers across the city will largely be closed to customers and construction and manufacturing is also being scaled back to help slow the virus spread.

In a press conference late Thursday morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says tighter coronavirus restrictions in Victoria will lead to as many as 400,000 people losing their job or seeing their hours reduced to zero and a 10 per cent national jobless rate by year's end.

Mr Morrison said the revised Treasury forecast was for a reduction in real gross domestic product in the September quarter of up to $12 billion.

"This is a heavy blow - a heavy blow," Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.

The state's second wave prompted Mr Andrews on Sunday to declare a state of disaster and flag the stage four restrictions for metropolitan Melbourne, including an 8pm-5am curfew.

Currently the Ballarat municipality has 13 active cases but this will be updated later this afternoon. The city registered its first 'second wave' COVID-19 case on July 17 - before then it hadn't had a case since mid-May.

Moorabool, between Ballarat and Melbourne, also has 13 active cases, while Golden Plains (12), Hepburn (1) and Pyrenees (1) still have infected patients.

Everyone who feels even the slightest cold or flu-like symptom must assume they have the virus until a test result proves otherwise. Anybody with symptoms or awaiting a result should self-isolate at home.

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