Metropolitan Melbourne will return to lockdown after the state recorded 191 new cases of coronavirus, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced on Tuesday afternoon.

Effective from 11:59pm on Wednesday, Andrews confirmed people in metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, north of the city, will only be able to leave their homes to shop for food and supplies, to receive or provide care, to exercise, and to study or work if they can't do so from home.

Watch: Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announces a return to lockdown for Melbourne. Post continues below. 

The return to stage three restrictions will be in place for at least six weeks, Andrews said.

This is everything we learnt in Daniel Andrews' latest press conference. 

A surge in cases in Victoria

There have been 191 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the state total of active cases to 772. It is the biggest single-day increase the state has seen since the pandemic began. 

At least 438 COVID-19 cases in Victoria have come from community transmission. 

Currently, 35 cases of coronavirus are in hospital with nine people receiving intensive care treatment. 

A total of 69 cases are linked to the nine public housing towers in total lockdown. 

Listen to The Quicky, Mamamia's daily news podcast. Post continues below. 

Melbourne under stage-three restrictions  

Premier Daniel Andrews said metropolitan Melbourne will be subject to stage three restrictions from 11:59pm on Wednesday. The lockdown will not apply to regional Victoria. 

The stage three restrictions mean people living in Melbourne will not be allowed to gather in groups of more than two people. Plus, you can have no visitors at home - although intimate partners can visit each other. Weddings are limited to five people, and funerals will be restricted to 10 people. 

Andrews said daily exercise will be treated differently this lockdown.

"You can't leave metropolitan Melbourne to get your daily exercise," he said. "You can't be going on a four-hour bushwalk hundreds of kilometres away from Melbourne."

Andrews added that the 'stay at home' order applies to a person's "principal place of residence". 

"Not stay at your holiday home. Not stay at your second home. Your principal place of residence is where you must be."

Andrews said it is unacceptable for residents to move around the state amid the coronavirus crisis and ordered every resident in Melbourne to stay in their "actual home" during this lockdown period. 

Daniel Andrews added that: "Victoria Police [will] put in place roadblocks and other command centres to ensure that that hard boundary between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria is not breached."

School holidays extended

The school holiday in Victoria was due to end next Monday, July 12 but Premier Andrews announced he will extend this holiday for some students. 

Year 12, Year 11 and Year 10 students who study VCE subjects will return to normal face to face learning - as scheduled - from next Monday.

On top of this, specialist schools will also reopen from Monday for face-to-face learning. 

For all other students, the government will extend the school holidays for a further week, saying this period will give the government and schools "more time to plan". 

He added that there will a supervised school holidays program set up for the children of essential workers or people who cannot work from home. 

"I’m very sorry that we find ourselves in this position."

The Victorian Premier said he is "very sorry that we find ourselves in this position". 

"This is challenging. I get it. I know that. I understand it. I didn't want to be in this position. No Victorian does," he said to the residents of the state. 

"Let's not see it as simply an inconvenience. It's much more than that. It's a pandemic. And it will kill thousands of people if it gets completely away from us. That will be more than inconvenient. It will be tragic. We don't want that. We can avoid that but we all have a part to play in that."

Sign up for the "Mamamia Daily" newsletter. Get across the stories women are talking about today.