A man in his 60’s has died from coronavirus last night, taking Victoria’s death toll to 16.

The national cases for the virus have passed 6,650 with the death toll reaching 74.

Global cases of COVID-19 have soared past two and a half million with the death toll nearing 200 thousand. Infections have increased by nearly 300 percent since the beginning of the month.

The virus reportedly originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and has since forced many countries and states into lockdown and caused a drop in their economies.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said that she is interested in an independent review into the origins of the virus.

Both the US and Australia have already been questioning the role China played in the global outbreak of COVID-19.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews released a graph on Monday depicting the predicted daily death toll if Victoria had not introduced physical distancing measures in response to COVID-19.

“I want to reinforce how serious this is,” he said in a Facebook post.

“The restrictions we have in place are working.”

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer released the predicted outcomes earlier that morning, predicting 650 deaths a day at the peak of the pandemic, without physical distancing measures in place.

There has been a range of different responses to the virus, some countries put in place very few social distancing measures while others quickly went into lockdown.

“The experience of other countries shows that lifting restrictions too quickly throws away all that hard work,” Andrews said.

“Stay home. Protect our health system. Save lives.”

Photo: Taken by Joshua Negri in Diamond Creek and used under a Creative Commons Attributions. The image has been cropped.