Victoria’s COVID-19 testing commander has explained on 3AW why the state is being plunged into a snap lockdown.

He said the UK variant of the virus was already hitting the “outer ring” of contacts.

Tom Elliott: “What do you have to see on Wednesday to go back to normal on Thursday?”

Jeroen Weimar: “The priority for us is … has there been any transmission to cases we don’t yet know about, are there people outside of our primary close contacts being infected, are there mystery cases, are we seeing chains of transmission being detected.

“I need really solid testing numbers.

“If we are sitting here on Tuesday, Wednesday, with low testing numbers, then we won’t have any confidence we are getting to the bottom of this.”

Click PLAY below to hear Mr Weimar on 3AW

(Photo by Luis Ascui/Getty Images)