Speaking on Monday, Professor Brett Sutton said although the idea of having varying rules within the regions was discussed, it was feared it would heighten the risk of coronavirus spread.

Instead, it seems more likely the entirety of regional Victoria will remain on the same rules, even for far-flung towns such as Mildura.

READ MORE: What are the COVID steps and how do we advance?

The only exception could be the Geelong/Colac area, which had more than 40 active cases between them as of Sunday afternoon.

Currently, Geelong and Colac remain under the same restrictions as everywhere else in regional Victoria.

In Ballarat there were two active cases on Sunday and in Bendigo there were four.

"There really is a risk of creating bubbles in regional Victoria that just drive other people to move to those settings, where they can go to a restaurant or to a pub for example," Professor Sutton said.

He added that allowing and encouraging people to move around, even within the regions, created heightened risk of seeding and spreading the virus.

"Cabinet talked about this at length," Professor Sutton said.

"If you've got different settings across regional Victoria, that risk is heightened."

Professor Sutton said he also expected the 14-day regional average to drop below five within the next fortnight.

In order to advance to 'step three', regional Victoria needs the 14-day average caseload to drop below five, as well as last 14 days without any mystery cases.

"I know people are watching the 14 day average closely now, regional Victoria's average cases have been just above five and we expect in two weeks that number will drop below five and without outbreaks occurring can open up further," he said.

"For metropolitan Melbourne the 14 day average is close to 100, but that was close to 400 only a month ago."

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