Health advice and restrictions to manage the COVID-19 pandemic will become more nationally consistent in the coming months, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr expects.
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But Mr Barr said state-based differences had been useful to manage outbreaks in different stages and account for the vast geographical variation of Australia.
"Whilst I accept there's a degree of frustration and it's sort of easy to say, 'Oh, it's all the fault of the federation', I think in fact the federation has allowed us to have those different approaches reflecting the different circumstances," Mr Barr said.
Speaking after national cabinet on Thursday agreed to a uniform definition of a close contact of a COVID-19 case, Mr Barr said the states and territories were heading in the direction of having consistent advice and restrictions.
"We are geographically a very big country. I think that's often forgotten in the context of these somewhat academic and esoteric debates about whether we need a national response," he said.
"Even if you didn't have state governments, there would still have been localised responses around the country in light of what we've experienced, because there was a lot of COVID in Sydney, there wasn't in Perth."
However, state and territory health authorities will still be able to declare people as close contacts outside the new definition, which will predominantly capture household contacts and reduce demand for COVID-19 testing.
"In the context of wanting to have that national consistency, we're also hanging onto, and most states and territories are doing this, the capacity to still have exceptional circumstance or local arrangements where a COVID outbreaks necessitated it, for example. It's not completely ceding that this is the only arrangement," Mr Barr said.
The ACT reported 506 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, the highest daily total since the pandemic began.
There were nine people in hospital receiving treatment for COVID-19 at 8pm on Saturday, with one person in intensive care receiving ventilation.
The new cases, reported in the 24-hour period to 8pm on Saturday, bring the active total to 1827. The previous record daily case day was New Year's Eve, when 462 cases were reported.
There were 3101 negative tests received in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday. There were 3141 negative tests
NSW reported 18,278 new cases of COVID-19 in the 24-hour period to 8pm on Saturday, from 90,019 tests. The total number of cases was a decline on the previous day, when 22,577 cases were reported.
However, the test positivity rate for the cases reported on Sunday was larger than Saturday. Roughly 19 per cent of tests in NSW were positive in Saturday's update, compared with more than 20 per cent in Sunday's figures.
Two people died in NSW and 1066 were in hospital, up from 901 the day before. There were 83 people in intensive care with COVID-19 in the state.
Victoria reported 7172 cases of COVID-19 on Saturday and three deaths. The state is managing 31,461 active cases, 472 people in hospital, and performed 48,252 coronavirus tests on Saturday. There were 22 people requiring ventilation in Victoria.
MORE A.C.T. POLITICS NEWS:
National cabinet on Thursday agreed close contacts were a household contact or someone who had been around a COVID-19-positive person for more than four hours in an enclosed space.
The change to how close contact definitions, which followed advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee that a "pragmatic" approach to testing and isolation was needed, will mean health authorities shift to using rapid antigen tests to screen close contacts.
The ACT is still planning how it will distribute rapid antigen tests to those who are required to take them under public health directions and what concessional arrangements will be in place for the tests.
NSW will sell the ACT about a million rapid antigen tests at cost later this month, while the territory has also placed more orders for the diagnostic kits.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
