Queensland has recorded another 10 deaths from COVID-19, with 11,947 new cases confirmed in the latest reporting period.
Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said there were 863 people in hospital, 47 patients were in ICU, 14 of whom are on ventilators.
There are 85,112 active cases in the state.
Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said that, of the people who died, one person was in their 30s, one in their 60s, seven in their 80s and one in their 90s.
Three of the people who died were unvaccinated, including the two youngest people, seven were double-vaccinated, and none had received boosters.
Ms D'Ath passed on her condolences to the families of people who died.
"This is not easy, knowing that people are going to lose their lives," she said.
"First what it does is reinforce the importance of getting vaccinated and getting your booster."
Dr Gerrard said Queensland's hospitalisations and ICU numbers from COVID were slightly down and "substantially lower than our projections", but was hesitant to make too much of the figures.
"We need to look for a trend, I wouldn't over interpret that," he said.
"There are a number of reasons why that number could have dropped including changes in discharge practices on the weekends.
"Possibly also because of some transfers of real stable patients to private hospitals, but obviously down is better than up."
Gold Coast still largest caseload
Dr Gerrard said the peak in COVID-19 cases from the current wave would not be apparent until it had passed.
"The real proof will be the numbers of patients start to fall.
"That will be a number of days after the actual peak of transmission and the true peak of admission to hospital."
He said the Gold Coast continued to have the greatest number of patients.
"I think this morning they had nine wards across the public and private sector with COVID patients on the Gold Coast."
Dr Gerrard said the age of people being hospitalised for COVID largely depended on vaccination status.
"Generally speaking … the triple-dosed patients are about 20 years older than the unvaccinated.
"That clearly shows how effective the vaccinating is."
Just over 65 per cent of eligible Queenslanders have received their third vaccine dose.
From tomorrow, Queenslanders will be eligible for their booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine three months after their second.
The state government's critical essential worker definition will also be updated from tomorrow.
The public health directive allows people who are a close contact to return to work if they are an essential worker, test negative for COVID-19 and are asymptomatic.
Essential workers who are close contacts and return to work will need to take a rapid antigen test on days one, two, four and six and isolate if they test positive.
Ms D'Ath said those workers should ideally be taking a COVID-19 test every day.
"It is the government's view that best practice is that where you are a close contact and a critical essential worker and we are allowing you to come back into the workplace … that where employers can they should be testing daily because that is best practice," Ms D'Ath said.
"That's where we'd like to move to once there is more readily available rapid antigen tests."
The New South Wales Government announced this morning students and teachers would be required to take two rapid antigen tests a week when school commences.
Ms D'Ath said Queensland would not follow suit.
"That is not the advice or recommendation from the AHPCC or the Chief Health Officer that we need to do this level of testing on young people," she said.
'Millions of RATs on the way'
Pharmacy Guild of Australia state president Chris Owen said people eligible for their booster from tomorrow could access them through their local pharmacy.
He asked people to be patient with the process and towards staff when enquiring about rapid antigen tests.
"There are tens of millions of tests on their way to Queenslanders across the state," he said.
Mr Owen said facilities were receiving 200-300 phone calls a day asking about supply.
"Pharmacies are currently experiencing a huge number of inquiries and phone calls.
"I would ask for those who are seeking the rapid energy test to please check social media channels first, so please look at Facebook pages as opposed to ringing the pharmacies themselves."
