Just weeks ago, Victoria was dealing with more than 700 new cases of coronavirus recorded in a single day.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
After a strict lockdown lasting for months, Victorians awoke to news on Monday the state had recorded zero new cases in the previous 24 hours.
The last time that zero cases had been recorded in Victoria was on June 9.
With the number of coronavirus cases across the country coming down and restrictions imposed in different states and territories gradually easing, what is the trajectory of the virus from here?
Where is coronavirus at in Australia?
As of October 26, there are just 226 active cases of coronavirus across the country.
Victoria accounts for 100 of those active cases in the community, followed by Western Australia and NSW with 57 and 53 active cases respectively.
However, in the latter two states, a majority of active cases have been travellers who have returned from overseas and are in hotel quarantine.
Hotel quarantine had been suspended in Victoria after failures with the system led to the state's second wave of infections.
The low case numbers in Victoria, where its 14-day rolling average of cases is now below five, are likely to lead to some restrictions being eased in Melbourne, where residents are still in lockdown.
Meanwhile, there are 12 active cases in South Australia and a further three in Queensland.
The ACT has just one active case, after a foreign diplomat returned to Australia and tested positive while in quarantine at home, breaking the territory's streak of more than 100 days without a new positive case.
Both Tasmania and the Northern Territory have no active cases in their community.
The number of people with coronavirus who are being treated in hospital is also on the decline.
Across the country, there are 17 patients in hospital with COVID-19, but reassuringly, none are in intensive care.
There are just three states with COVID-19 patients in their hospitals, with Victoria having seven patients, NSW with six and Queensland with four.
It has been almost a week since the last patient in intensive care with coronavirus left the unit.
Does this mean state borders will reopen?
While the low numbers seen in Victoria are cause for optimism, it may be some time yet before its borders reopen with NSW, which have been closed for several months.
State and territory leaders are working towards having all borders reopened to travellers before Christmas, following a decision made at the last National Cabinet meeting on Friday.
The only exception to this is Western Australia, which has had a hard border since the early days of the pandemic.
University of New South Wales epidemiology professor and World Health Organisation advisor Marylouise McLaws said the border between Victoria and NSW should be able to reopen relatively soon, given the low case numbers in both states.
READ MORE:
"I'm not sure what NSW would be looking for, but I would be looking for consistency in the [rolling 14-day average] being less than five for two weeks, and at the moment it is not consistent," Professor McLaws said.
"You would be looking for another 14-day period where there is less than five cases a day and you would be able to open the borders up to everyone."
In the past 14 days, eight of those days have had four cases or fewer recorded in a 24-hour period in Victoria.
Professor McLaws said Victoria reaching no cases in a day for the first time in three months was significant, but more time was needed to ensure case numbers remained stable.
While there have been days in recent weeks where NSW has recorded more cases than Victoria, a majority of them have been detected in hotel quarantine.
"NSW should be emulated by other states in how they're able to handle coronavirus," Professor McLaws said.
"NSW has the occasional case and the authorities are able to keep clusters under control."
Will we reach zero active cases?
Coronavirus cases are declining, but Professor McLaws said a milestone of zero active cases across Australia was an unlikely event.
"Playing whack-a-mole with new cases will be the new normal until we get a vaccine, and we still need the population to understand their importance in helping to control the spread of the virus," she said.
"We're unlikely to see zero cases across the country because up to 20 per cent of the cases have been asymptomatic."
Low levels of coronavirus transmission in more populated states like NSW and Victoria are likely in the weeks and months ahead, according to Professor McLaws.
However, she said as seen in NSW, contact tracers have been able to identify known clusters and isolate them away from the community, which would be the approach going forward.
Other potential sources of new coronavirus cases were likely.
"You do get introduction of coronavirus into the community inadvertently from outside sources like freight ships and cargo and staff may have contact with locals," she said.
"I can't see us keeping at zero cases a day forever, so we will need to assisted the contact tracers by getting tested immediately when we have cold-like symptoms."
Going into the summer months, where large amounts of people are expected to travel during the holidays, Professor McLaws said precautions should still be taken.
However, Australia is looking to be in a better position than Europe when it entered its summer period earlier this year.
"In Europe, they already had large numbers of cases to begin with and then they went on holidays and there were congregations at restaurants and pubs so of course you were going to get a spike in cases," she said.
"Australia is going into summer holidays with a low and safe level of cases and this will allow authorities to basically pounce on any cluster and put it out rapidly."