Australia records first COVID-19 death in a month amid state outbreak

SYDNEY - Australia recorded its first COVID-19 death in over a month on Wednesday, that of a man in his 80s, amid an outbreak of cases in the State of Victoria.

The incident takes the national death toll to 103 and the number of deaths in Victoria to 20.

Since last week Victoria has recorded over 100 positive tests for COVID-19 in what has been the largest jump in infections in several months, putting the entire country on increased alert.

Of 20 new cases recorded in Victoria on Wednesday, seven were linked to known outbreaks while three others remained under investigation, according to Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton.

However Sutton said that the state was not seeing an exponential increase in community transmissions which he described as encouraging.

Health experts continued to conduct targeted testing in several communities with known outbreaks, while Sutton urged all community members to continue to abide by good hygiene practices including regular hand washing and social distancing.

"People may not understand how much of a difference it makes, but I think the significant uptick in the last couple of weeks is because those very things haven't been followed. Those are the things that will maintain low transmission in Victoria," Sutton said.