SYDNEY Australia's second-largest city Melbourne will further ease restrictions from Thursday midnight notwithstanding a surge in Covid cases.

The Health Department has confirmed that the new cases were linked to the known outbreak in the Southbank apartment complex in inner Melbourne.

The state authority announced on Wednesday that the 25km travel limit across Victoria will be lifted, opening up travel between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. The mandatory masks will also only apply indoors. "Distance has kept us apart but kept us safe and saved lives. But Victoria's at its best when we're together," said acting premier James Merlino during the press conference.

At the same time, Victoria continued to ramp up its vaccination and testing efforts, completing 17,538 tests and administering 14,870 vaccine doses on June 15, bringing Victoria's total number of vaccinations to 831,856.

Global Covid Roundup: The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (17,533,221), France (5,806,255), Turkey (5,342,028), Russia (5,176,051), the UK (4,596,987), Italy (4,247,032), Argentina (4,172,742), Colombia (3,802,052), Spain (3,745,199), Germany (3,725,383) and Iran (3,049,648), the CSSE figures showed.

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