Canberra records 1122 new COVID cases

The ACT recorded 1122 new COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Friday.

This comes after infections jumped to 1311 on Thursday, the highest number of infections in almost two months. Numbers have remained over 1000 for four consecutive days.

There were 34 people in hospital to 8pm Friday. Two of them are in intensive care and one is being ventilated. A day earlier, the number of hospital admissions was 37 with four in intensive care.

The new infections were made up of 610 PCR tests and 512 rapid tests.

The total number of cases recorded since the pandemic began more than two years ago is at 65,281.

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The total number of people over five who are double vaccinated remains at 95.5 per cent. ACT Health does not update vaccination statistics over weekends.

Health authorities have made a fresh plea to Canberrans to come forward for their booster shot, saying the third-dose rate was not as high as it should be.

A total of 71.2 per cent of people aged 16 and over have received their booster, and 79.5 per cent of children aged five to 11 are vaccinated with a single dose.

The more transmissible Omicron BA.2 sub-variant is becoming the most dominant COVID-19 strain in the ACT, making up more than half of all sequenced cases in the territory last week.

Pathology labs are also gearing up to handle a larger number of samples, as more people are forced to present for a test amid a spike in community infections.

A rise in cases associated with Canberra schools was being mostly driven by household transmission and not virus spread within classrooms, authorities confirmed on Friday.

Meanwhile, education authorities are continuing to brace for a growing number of COVID-19 cases in schools before the end of the term with the possibility of a return to remote learning not ruled out.

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NSW has recorded 12 deaths in the 24 hours to 4pm Friday with 19,060 new COVID cases.

There were 1090 hospitalisations across the state, including 29 in ICU.

Meanwhile Victoria has recorded two deaths with COVID-19 in the same period. The state reported 7847 new infections and 210 hospitalisations with 23 in the ICU and five on ventilators.

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