COVID cases in Canberra dropped over the Christmas period after ACT Health revealed there were 1436 cases reported in the past week.
This is less than half the number reported two weeks ago when there were more than 3000 weekly cases in the territory.
But four Canberrans died with COVID over the last reporting period. ACT Health said a man in his 80s, a man in his 90s and two women in their 90s died, taking the territory's COVID death toll to 142.
There were 73 people with COVID in Canberra hospitals as of 4pm on Thursday, including seven people in intensive care and two patients were being ventilated.
Health authorities also revealed there were 2085 infections and no deaths reported last week. Infections were not reported due to the Christmas and New Year shutdown.
Australia faced another wave of COVID cases in the lead-up to Christmas.
There have been 228,422 cases reported in the ACT since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest weekly COVID-19 data released on Friday show cases continuing to fall in Victoria and NSW but deaths rising.
Victoria recorded 12,349 new infections and 108 deaths over the seven days to Friday after recording 16,568 cases and 69 deaths the previous week.
It was a similar story in NSW as weekly reported cases to Thursday afternoon dropped to 19,793 from 27,665 the previous week, while deaths more than doubled from 32 to 77.
'Most transmissible subvariant'
The World Health Organisation has expressed concerns about the new subvariant XBB.1.5.
While there is no evidence the new variant is more severe than previous iterations, there is concern about how easily it can be spread.
"It is the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet," WHO COVID lead Maria Van Kerkhove said.
"We do expect further waves of infection around the world, but that doesn't have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work."
Just eight cases of the XBB.1.5 variant have been detected in Australia at last count, but health authorities are on guard after it ripped through America.
Recent data from the United States has suggested the new variant is responsible for 40 per cent of the country's new cases.
It is unclear if the variant is having the same impact in China, which is in the midst of a COVID surge. Chinese authorities have been reluctant to share information data about its COVID cases.
Earlier this week, federal Health Minister Mark Butler introduced a requirement for travellers from China to record a negative COVID-19 test prior to departure.
Mr Butler said he had asked the Health Department to contact its Chinese equivalent and encourage more transparency with information.
"It would be valuable for information to be shared more comprehensively by China not just with Australia, but with the rest of the world in the way in which other countries are doing real time offloading of their genomic sequencing of COVID cases," he said on Thursday.
- With AAP
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