Victorian health officials are expecting an influx in residents returning from NSW with 140 people already being monitored by DHHS.
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COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar visited the testing clinic at Wodonga racecourse and said 32 checkpoints would be in place by tomorrow along the border.
"As of midnight last night, Sunday night, we did close our borders to all travellers coming out of the Greater Sydney and Central Coast areas," he said.
"All arrivals from flights coming in from NSW are being checked.
"I'd like to really thank our colleagues in Victoria Police for their work in setting up 13 border controls overnight. 19 other locations are being set up.
"There are now over 500 officers already deployed in manning those checkpoints, there's a further 280 officers coming on stream over the course of today, I'm confident those 32 checkpoints will be up and running by tomorrow, it maybe during the course of tomorrow.
"In terms of people arriving after midnight Monday, the very strong message is that anybody, Victorian or otherwise, coming in from the Greater Sydney or Central Coast areas will not be able to enter state.
"We are not offering mandatory hotel quarantine as an option, we are saying to you, if you turn up at our land borders after midnight tonight, you will not be able to enter Victoria."
Mr Weimar said DHHS was aware of 140 close contacts who have been in the red zone.
"Those 140 people are getting very close support from ourselves at DHHS," he said.
"We'll be validating everybody who's got a permit against the tests results over the coming days. Anybody for whom we do not see test results will be followed up by our team.
"We're confident with those measures and spot checks happening in other parts of the state and full airport coverage, we've got the right supports in place."
Albury Wodonga Health incident management team hospital commander Lucie Shanahan thanked the people who had responded to their call for testing.
"With a lot of people seeking to get home quickly, we've certainly seen quite an increased demand across our Albury Wodonga Health COVID swabbing clinics," she said.
"We reached out to our colleagues at Goulburn Valley Health who very gratefully sent a swabbing team over at very short notice on Saturday and that enabled us to stand up the clinic her at the Wodonga racecourse.
"We've got a number of local people who have been in Sydney recently and returned since the 11th of December who are seeking to come and get tested.
"But also, with the Hume Freeway running through Albury-Wodonga, we've seen a number of people returning to Victoria or travelling, predominantly from the Greater Sydney region.
Nearly 1000 tests have been done at Albury Wodonga Health's sites alone since Friday, with a peak of 430 on Sunday compared to 40 across the entire previous weekend.
Mr Weimar apologised for delays on the border and a disruption to Christmas plans.
"At the point at which we start to see the case numbers coming down ... the exposure sites reducing, and at the point at which NSW are confident they've identified all our chains of transmission, that's when we can start to review [border controls]," he said.
"Cross-border communities have already suffered ... we do not see at this point in time a significant risk in the cross-border areas.
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"As such, we've changed our advice yesterday afternoon - if you're in an LGA area that's adjacent to the NSW border, you do not need to apply for a permit, you can cross freely across the border, but you will need a driver's licence or some form of an ID.
"Clearly, if the outbreak in Greater Sydney starts to spread into the border areas, we'll have to adjust our advice, but at this point in time we're happy to encourage and enable free border movement.
"We are obviously watching the situation in Sydney very carefully."
