As it happened: Victoria records 270 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths as NSW remains on high alert amid Crossroads Hotel cluster growth

- Queensland declared two Sydney council areas COVID-19 hotspots and banned anyone who has travelled to suburbs within Liverpool and Campbelltown from entering the state under strict new border measures.

- It was revealed the 1000 ADF personnel headed to Victoria to help with the coronavirus response will assist in a number of roles, including riding along in ambulances as extra paramedic crews. Soldiers will be deployed to Melbourne in the coming days.

This is Rachael Dexter signing off. We'll be back tomorrow with more live, free coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

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"If you see the ADF, or other agencies for that matter, supporting us it just means they're helping out. It doesn't mean there's a crisis and it might mean that they're doing a bit of training," he said.

"It's not unusual for us to train student paramedics from universities who are often seen as the third person in ambulances, so there’s nothing to be concerned about - we'll still have paramedics responding in ambulances with all the usual equipment and the usual care."

Mr Dunlop said soldiers wouldn’t necessarily be providing medical care to patients.

"They're able to support the paramedics with grabbing and handling some of the equipment, helping with some of the manual handling and then a slow comfortable drive back to hospital," he said.

He said he hoped soldiers would begin 10 days of training from next week.

"So you might see some soldiers riding along in a couple of weeks time, they won't be deployed as a second officer [at that stage] it will be part of their training so that we're prepared should we get a surge," he said.

"Now we’re all hoping that doesn’t happen… if we follow all the rules and look after each other we won’t have to do it, but just in case we need to be prepared."

Mr Dunlop said Ambulance Victoria had other options for increasing ambulance capacity in the event of a surge.

"We've got 120 new paramedics that we've just recruited, [and] you've probably heard about the 200 students that are working at DHHS at the moment, so we can onboard them pretty quickly as well, so there's lots of options," he told Drive host Rafael Epstein.

Several paramedics in Victoria have been infected with COVID-19 via community transmission recently.

"I'm an ICU doctor so would love it if we didn’t have to care for COVID-19 patients any more. But this 'elimination' can’t work. We can destroy society as we know it waiting months for 'zero' cases, but hidden transmission chains mean a single case can pop up a month after we reopen and we are back at square one. People in quarantine might need medical care which will, given enough time, inevitably lead to a case amongst healthcare workers. Anyway if it is this hard to even barely suppress the infection, it is pure wishful thinking to say we should just completely get rid of it instead."
- Mark B

"There is no good outcome here, just less damage. Elimination is the only way to avoid the cycle of loosening and tightening restrictions without widespread death. Other states have eliminated the virus, if it requires more work from VIC and even NSW we should do it. We should do it now while the public will comply. Harder lockdown for shorter period. People will not long-term accept that they can go to work but not see their family. It is too damaging to both health and the economy to continue this cycle of lockdowns for years until we have a vaccine. Elimination is the only way to any kind of 'covidnormal'."
- Lauren

"Anything less than elimination will involve repeated outbreaks, repeated lockdowns to control those outbreaks and constant, ongoing damage to the economy everytime a lockdown is required. This virus is so contagious that it is not possible to have some imaginary situation where we allow it to circulate at some low, controlled level in our society while we all going about our lives normally. Many of the people arguing against elimination seem to think that is possible - it isn't. It's really all or nothing. If we don't eliminate it, sooner or later we will not be able to control it. And a lot of people will die. We should pursue an elimination strategy to allow time to see if we can get a vaccine and also to allow time for research into what it is that makes this virus so deadly in some people, which may lead to development of improved treatments for COVID-19. If it proves impossible to get a vaccine and no effective treatment is found, then we can re-evaluate our strategy. In the meantime, we could all live relatively normally and the economy would be better off as well."
- Unnamed

"Yes, looking at the way the pandemic is progressing around the world and the rates of infection, two scenarios could play out. One where the earth’s population reaches 'herd immunity', the second being that an effective vaccine is developed and deployed. In either scenarios the sensible approach is to hold the fort for as long as possible, otherwise we will be hurtling towards the inevitable."
- Sam

"In the short term and on paper I like the idea of an elimination strategy. No COVID-19 in the community, and life can return to some sort of normalcy. But that means shutting Australia off from the rest of the world, which means the economy will be shattered long-term. Yes, an elimination attempt and lockdown are designed to protect the elderly and vulnerable, but what about those who have lost their jobs, which in turn can result in higher poverty levels, mental health issues and suicides?"
- Harriet

The overwhelming majority of Victoria's cases are in the lockdown zone of metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell shire. But there are 32 cases in rural/regional Victoria, where the lockdown has not been reimposed.

There are six active cases in Greater Geelong, four in Greater Bendigo, three each in Bass Coast, Baw Baw and Golden Plains, two each in Greater Shepparton, Moorabool and South Gippsland, and one each in Campaspe, East Gippsland, Latrobe, Macedon Ranges, Surf Coast, Swan Hill and Warrnambool.

"Not possible long term without vaccine. Tourism, exports and imports imperative to the economy so unless we restrict these activities to other countries which also eliminate the virus they will collapse. Would be great to eliminate it but long term cannot be isolated from the world economy. We need a strategy to live with this as there may never be a vaccine."
- Ross

"No. It isn't possible. The virus is already in this Country and unless you want to stop trading with the rest of the world, it will keep coming in. The repeated shutdowns are unsustainable, better to keep the economy open and pursue social distancing and other measures."
- Mark

"Definitely not. It's a short-sighted attempt to remain in denial about how pandemics work. If we by some miracle eliminate the virus and the vaccine is anything less than 70% effective, we're cut off from the rest of the world forever, because they definitely won't be able to eliminate it. If it does settle into a seasonal pattern like flu or the common cold as experts have predicted, we'll just delay the arrival of the 'new normal' for the sake of trying to preserve the old world. We would also be extremely vulnerable to further outbreaks, which are extremely likely given how contagious it is. We'd need to institute expensive quarantine procedures to limit the chances of outbreaks, and even the best such programs would be risky and failure intolerant. Elimination is only really viable if a vaccine is a silver bullet. Any vaccine is unlikely to be as effective as Smallpox, polio, or MMR, so it's seeming less and less like a viable solution and more like a long shot. The virus is here, it will kill people, and nothing can stop that now. Better to stop denying that and start planning around it."
- Nick

"No, the government is doing a good job so far and we mostly have had strong leadership."
- Frank

"Australia should not pursue an elimination strategy. Whilst this is a pure and noble pursuit, the economic cost to our country is neither of those things nor it is realistic. To pursue 100% elimination we are committing to complete border closure until it virus is eradicated in the rest of the world. This is highly unlikely as other nations do not have the ability to close up as we have but also there is a high likelihood that this virus may mutate, reinfect and generally continue to spread globally. We should protect our citizens most likely to pass away from this disease (elderly and high-risk) and continue our economy (which relies on international business and tourism) so we can pay tax and support our health system and social services."
- Lauren

You can still have your say, I'll post another mixed collection of your responses before we close the blog tonight.