The NSW Health Minister says the number of people getting a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot isn't good enough as hundreds of thousands of appointments go to waste.
NSW reported 29 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, while the number of people admitted to hospital with the virus continued to stabilise.
There are 2,722 people with the virus in the state’s hospitals, with 181 in intensive care and 72 on ventilators.
Over 36 per cent of eligible people in NSW have had their third COVID-19 jab but Health Minister Brad Hazzard said that was not high enough.
"The numbers of boosters are not where we need them to be to keep people safe," Mr Hazzard said.
"In [the Royal North Shore Hospital], there are seven people in ICU and not one of them has had the booster."
Mr Hazzard said ensuring health staff were available to run vaccine hubs where only a "handful of people" come for shots was "ridiculous".
"They could be caring for people elsewhere."
NSW Health deputy secretary Susan Pearce said appointments were "going begging" because many people believed they didn't need a booster shot.
"There's a perception in the community that Omicron is milder and so therefore a booster is not necessary," she said.
"But to prevent severe disease, that booster is absolutely critical."
She said there was also a growing trend of people who had already contracted COVID not getting boosted.
"You still need to have it, we cannot reiterate this enough," Ms Pearce said.
Premier Dominic Perrottet said the removal of COVID restrictions next month hinged on a high booster rate and if uptake didn't improve Mr Hazzard said it may become necessary to mandate boosters for the health and education sectors.
Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said she wanted to see everyone with any underlying health condition or those over the age of 65 booking in urgently.
"Can I reinforce everything that the literature is throwing up ... every report that is published, every study shows the benefit of having that booster dose," she said.
"If you get a booster, it reduces your chance of actually getting the infection."
Ms Pearce said the government was working with Indigenous and multicultural organisations to improve messaging about boosters in areas where uptake was low.
Currently between 10,000 and 12,000 people are receiving a booster in public hubs each day but Ms Pearce wants to triple that as there is capacity for over 250,000 boosters each week.
There were 17,316 new COVID cases recorded in the latest reporting period, of which 7,382 came from rapid antigen tests (RATs) and 9,934 were from PCR swabs.
The state is yet to reach 95 per cent double-vaccination for those aged 16 and over, with the rate currently sitting at 93.9 per cent.
Mr Perrottet said 80 per cent of schools across the state had now received a supply of RAT kits ahead of term one commencing next week for most schools.
However, some NSW independent schools, where students are returning today, are still waiting on RAT kits to arrive.
Reddam and Santa Sabina schools in Sydney are among those starting term one before the public system.
The chief executive of the Association of Independent School, Geoff Newcombe, said some schools sourced their own RATs before the state government released a return-to-school plan last week.
"It's not ideal that some of them don't have their testing kits [but] this has been a massive distribution exercise for the department of education and I think they doing everything they possibly can to get to get them into the schools," he said.
Dr Chant said no parent should be sending their child to school if they have symptoms, even if they return a negative RAT.
"The main thing we can to keep people safe is moving to a focus on symptomatic people," she said.
On Thursday afternoon the Prime Minister, premiers and chief ministers met for national cabinet where they were expected to discuss retailers' demands for more staff exemptions from isolation rules.
Isolation requirements for transport, freight and logistics workers have already been relaxed but the the Australian Retailers Association wants those exemptions to be expanded to include all retail workers, warehousing and distribution centre workers.
It says supply chain backlogs are not improving, with many products still not available due to workers needing to isolate.
Ongoing supply chain pressures will also be on the agenda at national cabinet, as well as health system capacity and the progress of the vaccination program, particularly boosters and vaccine uptake among children.
