ACT cases stay high as QLD toddler dies from COVID-19

There were 141 people with COVID-19 in hospital in the 24 hours to Tuesday 8pm. That's a drop of 10 on the day before.

Of those, one patient is in the ICU and none are on ventilation. This is unchanged

The ACT recorded 1104 new COVID-19 cases, with a rolling average of 960, slightly down on 965 the day before.

There are currently 5604 active cases in the ACT, and 89 deaths.

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A Queensland toddler has died from COVID-19.

The child, a month away from turning two, died at Queensland Children's Hospital on Sunday night, but the death was only confirmed late on Tuesday.

The state's Deputy Premier, Steven Miles, offered his condolences to the family.

"The death of a child is awfully sad," he told reporters on Wednesday.

"My heart just goes out to that family, and of course to our health workers who would have done everything that they could to take care of that little child."

Almost half of adult Australians are estimated to have contracted COVID-19 since the pandemic began in early 2020.

Sydney's Kirby Institute says a 46.2 per cent prevalence of the virus is almost triple that reported in its previous serosurvey of antibody tests, which estimated about 17 per cent of the population had been infected by late February.

"While we know there is a lot of virus circulating in the community, we can't rely on testing data alone to understand how many people have been infected," the institute's Dr Dorothy Machalek said.

"Some may experience only mild symptoms, or none at all, and they may not always have a test to detect the virus.

"There is also high use of rapid antigen tests, which don't always get reported."

Dr Machalek said the serosurveys provide a more complete picture of how much COVID-19 is out there.

They measure antibodies to the virus, created when the body's immune system responds to infection, which remain present for months afterwards.

-With AAP

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