Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced which businesses will have to close in areas currently in Stage 4 lockdown.
The Melbourne and Mitchell Shire regions have been experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infections over several weeks, as health authorities try to prevent more transmissions.
The next step will be to shut down businesses that the state government has declared as non-essential.
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That means all retail, some manufacturing and some administration will be forced to shut for at least six weeks in the Melbourne Metro area after the Premier declared a State of Disaster over the weekend.
The Premier said there will be some exceptions, including for Bunnings stores, where people will only be allowed to click and collect items rather than browse through the aisles.
"To give you the retail example, for instance, Bunnings, you will no longer be able to go into a Bunnings store but you will be able to collect goods without making contact with anybody," he said at the press conference.
"Some of those drive-through arrangements, similar arrangements for couriers, so the home delivery model will be able to continue in a number of different retail sites, but retail will look very different."
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The changes will come into effect at 11.59pm on Wednesday night.
Premier Andrews said the group of businesses who will not shut will be supermarkets, grocery stores, banks, news agencies, post offices, petrol stations, frontline response workers and alcohol shops.
"As heartbreaking as it is to close down places of employment, while I never thought that I would be telling people not to go to work, that is what we have to do in order to stop the spread of this wildly infectious virus, this deadly virus," he said.
He also encouraged people not to panic buy or stockpile food or resources, adding: "I understand that there is a sense of concern in the community and hopefully the clarity of the message today, you do not need to do that because supermarkets as well as grocery stores, the local fruit and veg, the local butcher, the baker, all of those shops, they will remain open."
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A third category of work will have to be scaled back.
Meat works will move to two-third production and staff will have to wear full PPE. Construction will be split into three sections: large scale government projects will be reduced by half, large commercial building will have to reduce staff down to the practical minimum and have no more than 25 percent of their staff working, and residential construction will be reduced to five people per site.
Mr Andrews also revealed a further 429 new cases of coronavirus have been recorded since yesterday and 13 deaths.
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said 393 cases are still under investigation but 36 are linked to outbreaks or complex cases. That takes the state's overall total cases to 11,937.
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Among the people who have tested positive in the previous weeks, there are 416 Victorians in hospital, including 35 people in intensive care.