The state's COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar visited Wodonga on Monday to thank Border health workers for their efforts in testing, vaccinating and caring for residents.

"In this part of Victoria we see one of the highest rates of third dose vaccination with over seven out of 10 people in the area now having had their third dose vaccination, it's a fantastic figure," he said.

Mr Weimar reported 9597 additional positive COVID results on Monday owing to the present "son of Omicron" variant.

There are 381 people in hospital and sadly one more death.

"All of our modelling has shown that we're expecting case numbers to rise up probably to around 14,000, 15,000 a day by the Easter period or just after the Easter period," he said.

"So the numbers we're seeing the last week or two are in line with our modelling and expectations."

He encouraged people to be vaccinated, wear masks indoors if social distancing wasn't possible and get tested if they had any symptoms.

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"Please make sure you know if you've got COVID or not so you can take the appropriate actions and protect those loved ones around you," he said.

The commander noted, however, how the community was now living with COVID.

"If you walk around Wodonga today, walk around Albury today, our shops are open, our restaurants, people are able to go to work fairly normally," he said.

"This is actually a much more effective place to be and it's a much more stable place to be than where we were only three or four months ago.

"But we'll always be on the watch out as we go into the winter months for any other variants that might start to emerge and make sure we have appropriate actions in place to handle them."

Albury Wodonga Health interim chief executive Janet Chapman reiterated the importance of being immunised against the virus.

"The evidence is really clear the best way to protect yourself from serious disease or hospitalisation is to be fully vaccinated," she said.

Ms Chapman urged people not to delay seeking treatment if needed, despite the pressures facing the Border health service.

"We do feel that there is quite a lot of impact of people who haven't been able to access their usual care during the COVID pandemic," she said.

"So people may not have been to GPs as often as they normally would, they may not have had the regular test, they may have had delays in elective surgery and we do think that is having an impact now in people's demand for services."

Asked about the progress of the Albury Wodonga Health master plan, the interim chief executive said the first draft had been completed but some more work was needed.

"Really it's then up to government to look at how they can support our organisation, how they can support the services to our local communities with the infrastructure that we desperately need," she said.

She declined to comment on Farrer MP Sussan Ley's Freedom of Information bid to reveal the master plan.

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