The streak of above-1000 new daily COVID-19 cases in Canberra has broken on Sunday following a four-day jump in new infections.
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The ACT recorded 926 new COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Saturday.
This comes after infections jumped to 1311 on Thursday, the highest number of infections in almost two months. Numbers remained over 1000 for four consecutive days.
There were 38 people in hospital to 8pm Saturday. Four of them are in intensive care and none are currently ventilated. A day earlier, the number of hospital admissions was 34 with two in intensive care.
The new infections were made up of 517 PCR tests and 409 rapid tests.
The total number of cases recorded since the pandemic began more than two years ago is at 66,273.
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Around Australia
NSW has recorded four deaths in the 24 hours to 4pm Saturday with 16,813 new COVID cases.
There were 1124 hospitalisations across the state, including 33 in ICU.
Meanwhile Victoria has recorded zero deaths with COVID-19 in the same period. The state reported 6694 new infections and 215 hospitalisations with 21 in the ICU and six on ventilators.
Plea for third dose uptake
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.
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BA.2 sub-variant expected to drive spike in infections
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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Harley Dennett
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
