Canberra Health Services is implementing additional measures to ensure the safety of staff, patients and visitors after an outbreak in one of its wards grows.
Twenty-two patients have tested positive for coronavirus, growing from the 12 in Tuesday's announcement of the outbreak.
Five staff have so far tested positive for coronavirus, the same as the initial announcement on Tuesday.
The outbreak is reportedly still isolated to ward 7B.
Team members within the ward are wearing N95 masks and eye protection in clinical spaces to avoid further transmission, and air purifiers have been deployed in the area.
Other new measures include mask requirements when visiting Canberra Health Services facilities and increased COVID testing for patients in hospitals.
A spokesperson said the response is also to help the spread of viruses in winter.
"As we head into the cooler months of the year, we are seeing an increase of respiratory viruses in the community, including RSV, influenza and COVID-19," they said.
"This means we are seeing more sick people attending Canberra Health Services' facilities and more staff away from work because they are unwell.
"This is why we are implementing additional safety measures to help keep our staff, patients and their visitors safe."
CHS is also urging the community to consider whether or not visiting a hospital is actually required.
"This includes encouraging only having two visitors at a bedside at a time. We will continue to closely monitor the situation to see if further changes are necessary to keep patients, staff and visitors safe," the CHS spokesperson said.
Canberra Health Services chief executive Dave Peffer said the hospital has moved the COVID escalation framework from green to amber.
"We assess a range of factors, one being the impact on our overall bed base, also the impact on our workforce ... at the moment we've got 51 COVID inpatients," he said.
"Each one of those cases has an impact on the bed base in terms of either requiring an individual room or the restrictions that we need to have in place to protect patients and our workforce.
"This imposes a range of mandatory requirements when entering our healthcare facilities, including wearing of masks."
He said there is more than just COVID going around the hospital.
"At the moment at the hospital, we are seeing the onset of flu, we're heading into the cooler months, RSV as well," he said.
"We're seeing those numbers drift up, and of course that can have a big impact on the health service, our hospitals and also our community facilities.
"We moving as quickly as we can, but having open facilities where we do have visitors continuing to come in, and also recognising that not everyone who is COVID positive is displaying symptoms."
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