Victoria Covid: 45 new local cases as vaccine site crashes

Victoria has recorded 45 new local cases as its latest Covid outbreak continues to rage on.

"Of the 45 local cases, 36 are linked to current outbreaks and 17 have been in quarantine throughout their infectious period," the state's health department said on Wednesday morning.

This leaves nine cases still under investigation as so-called mystery cases continue to swamp contact tracers.

Once again, a majority of the new infections — 28 of the 45 — were in the community while infectious.

In the past 24 hours, 31,629 vaccine doses were administered and 53,321 Covid test results were received. No new cases were found in hotel quarantine.

The new cases follow 50 recorded Covid cases on Tuesday, of which only 11 were in quarantine throughout their infectious period.

The total number of active cases in the state is 538.

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Victoria's vaccination website crashes

The Victorian government's vaccination website has crashed after thousands of young people tried to secure a booking for the Pfizer vaccine.

From Wednesday, Pfizer eligibility expands to people aged 16 to 39 across Victoria's 55 vaccination hubs as supply ramps up courtesy of 175,000 doses imported to the state from Poland.

Premier Daniel Andrews said more than 830,000 vaccination bookings over the next four weeks will be made available from 7am today, including 450,000 first-dose Pfizer appointments.

Those aged 18 to 39 who have already made a first dose AstraZeneca appointment will be given the option to instead receive the Pfizer jab, while 16 to 17-year-olds will strictly receive the latter.

But within minutes of bookings opening, the website appeared to buckle.

Many young people reported receiving a "500 internal server error" after waiting in the queue to book their appointment, while others were told they were ineligible for the vaccine.

with AAP

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