Donald Trump tweets about Melbourne's COVID-19 crisis to show other parts of the world are also suffering from 'Big China virus' - but vows US will be over the illness 'soon'

Donald Trump has weighed in on Melbourne's strict new lockdown measures and boasted about his own handling of the pandemic in America.

The US President retweeted a story about Victoria declaring a State of Disaster in response to its worsening coronavirus outbreak on Sunday.

'Big China Virus breakouts all over the World, including nations which were thought to have done a great job,' he wrote.

'The Fake News doesn't report this. USA will be stronger than ever before, and soon!'

Victoria's escalated State of Emergency was introduced at 6pm on Sunday after the state recorded another 671 new cases and seven more deaths. 

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Donald Trump has weighed in on Melbourne's strict new lockdown measures by boasting about his own handling of the pandemic

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Trump, during the tweet storm, deflected blame for the coronavirus pandemic to China as polls show Americans do not approve of his handling of national crises – including the COVID-19 outbreak

Trump's post about Victoria's coronavirus outbreak was part of a Twitter spree on Sunday morning, which is believed to be an attempt to shift attention away from America's COVID-19 outbreaks and his sliding popularity in the polls.

The US has almost 4.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 152,000 Americans have died from the virus.

Australia has 17,936 confirmed cases and 208 deaths.

Despite his own country's COVID-19 case numbers - the worst in the world - Trump has continued to point to how other countries are struggling to contain the virus. 

'This resurgence in cases is occurring throughout large portions of our planet — in Japan, China, Australia, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Hong Kong — places where they thought they'd really done great,' Trump said last week.

'It came back, and in a couple of cases came back very strongly. The virus was said to be under control but new cases have risen very significantly once again. So when you think somebody is doing well, sometimes you have to hold your decision on that. You have to hold your statements.'

Australia was placed under lockdown in March as the number of cases continued to grow. 

Melbourne a ghost town after night-time curfew enforced

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Collins Street was eerily quiet on Sunday night after Victoria recorded almost 700 new coronavirus cases within a 24 hour period

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A lone Melburnian walks along Swanston Street in Melbourne's CBD on Sunday night as Victoria tightened COVID-19 restrictions 

Restrictions began to ease in April as cases dropped and the country looked on track to eliminate the virus.  

In late June, when a second wave swept through Melbourne, restrictions were reintroduced with most states closing their borders to Victoria. 

But the cases continued to spiral with record-breaking numbers announced last week. 

On Sunday, Premier Dan Andrews declared a State of Disaster, throwing those in Melbourne under a police enforceable curfew - as the rest of Australia returns to business as usual.

For the next six weeks, Melburnians are banned from leaving their homes between 8pm and 5am unless for work or care-related reasons. 

Melbourne will remain in stage four lockdown until at least September 13.

Under the tighter restrictions, Melbourne residents will only be allowed to exercise for an hour a day and can't travel more than 5km from home for shopping or exercise.

The rest of Victoria, which has 328 active cases, will return to stage lockdown from 11.59pm Wednesday.

Mr Andrews said the tight restrictions were necessary to prevent the lockdown dragging on until Christmas.

'Six weeks versus a slower strategy. A much, much slower strategy that takes up to six months,' he said.

'I'm not prepared to accept that or accept days and days and days of hundreds of cases and more and more death.

'All of those changes are about limiting the number of people we come into contact with.'

Victoria's chief health officer Brett Sutton said 'stage three' restrictions implemented almost a month ago hadn't been enough.

'Numbers have to change,' he said.