Victoria's coronavirus hotline has crashed after being inundated with calls from people who fear they may have the virus, leaving many people at home, confused and unable to be tested.

Concerned Victorians who called the 1800 number were greeted with a message about an "unexpected technical problem" which meant their call could not be answered on Tuesday morning.

Some callers, who managed to get through, waited on hold for more than an hour.

The hotline is manned by staff from the existing the Nurse-On-Call service, a 24-hour helpline.