Some patients currently at the Canberra Hospital are set to be moved to private hospitals or aged care facilities, as the pressure on the territory's main hospital continues to rise.
Canberra Health Services chief executive Cathie O'Neill confirmed on Monday that the hospital was running out of beds and staff, as the number of COVID-positive patients continues to climb.
On Monday, the ACT set another record for the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 at 171.
Five of those are in intensive care and three require ventilation.
"We have been working with our private hospital partners and also a couple of the residential aged care facilities in the territory, in preparation of transferring some patients to those facilities [on Tuesday]," Ms O'Neill said.
Earlier on Monday, Canberra Health Services urged Canberrans to avoid the emergency department unless their condition was life-threatening.
"Our emergency departments are extremely busy," Canberra Health Services said in a tweet.
ACT still 'weeks' from peak of daily cases
Despite recording consistently high numbers of new daily COVID-19 cases, the ACT has not yet reached its peak infection rate, according to the territory's Chief Health Officer.
ACT Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said in the wake of the weekend's emergency COVID-19 national cabinet meeting, she believed the government was taking "the second wave" of Omicron very seriously, however, masks would not be mandated in the ACT.
"My decision and recommendation to the government here is that we are not going to take that extra step to mandate," she said.
Dr Coleman credited the ACT's high vaccination rate for her hesitation to mandate mask wearing in the territory.
But she said Canberra had not yet seen the highest daily infection rate and cases were expected to continue to rise well into August.
"We do know that our numbers have been climbing and we do know that a high proportion of the population has had COVID."
Dr Coleman also reiterated that having had COVID-19 in the past would not protect anyone from new variants.
Students begin heading back to school for term 3
ACT Minister for Education Yvette Berry said every public school in the ACT was ready to return to face-to-face learning today, despite a rise in COVID cases.
"We will do everything we can to keep our schools open to face-to-face learning, we know that is the most ideal," she said.
Ms Berry said daily RATs would not be mandatory for school staff members, however, masks would remain a requirement for teachers.
Masks are not mandatory for school students.
Ms Berry said the current health advice meant it was safe for students to return to schools, as they are doing around the country.
"We are seeing this conversation across the country where every state and territory is re-adjusting how school will look this term, knowing that we will see an increase in COVID and the flu season," she said.
Currently, just over 80 per cent of Canberra children aged five to 11 have received a COVID vaccine dose and 77.7 per cent of Canberrans aged 16 and older have received their third.
