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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Jasper Lindell

Two people die with COVID-19 in ACT as cases rise slightly

In-depth COVID

A man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s died with COVID-19 in the ACT in the last week, while cases rose slightly.

The ACT reported 3184 cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Thursday, with 69 people with the virus in hospital.

Three people were receiving treatment in the capital's intensive care units and one person was being ventilated. No patients were in intensive care last week.

The ACT will next provide an update to COVID-19 statistics on January 6.

The ACT reported 3018 cases last week, while 81 people were in hospital.

"Of the 123 COVID-19-related deaths in 2022, 26 had received four doses of vaccine, 38 had received 3 doses of vaccine, 32 had received 2 doses of vaccine, six had received a single dose of vaccine, 14 were unvaccinated, and the vaccination status of the remaining seven individuals is unknown," the government's final epidemiological report for 2022 said.

Chief Health Officer Dr Kerryn Coleman on Tuesday said the ACT was experiencing a "grumbling peak" of COVID-19 infections.

It was harder to determine or predict COVID cases as authorities no longer receive the same level of data, she said.

But Dr Coleman said she was "very confident" case numbers would not grow to the levels experienced in previous waves given the variants in circulation and the vaccine coverage.

COVID cases rose only slightly in Canberra this week. Picture by Elesa Kurtz

NSW's latest wave of COVID-19 infections has reached a peak just in time for Christmas, the state's health authorities said.

"This week, as predicted, key indicators show the number of cases in NSW are stable or declining which suggests we have passed the peak of the COVID-19 wave," Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said in a video statement.

"However, the transmission remains high in the community."

There were 38,610 people diagnosed with COVID-19 across the state this week to 4pm on Thursday, a decrease of 5.4 per cent since the previous week. Seventy-eight deaths were also reported.

Infections continue to stabilise in Victoria, remaining in the 24,000s for a second successive week after hitting 27,000 earlier in the month.

with Lucy Bladen, AAP

Our coverage of the health and safety aspects of this outbreak of COVID-19 in the ACT is free for anyone to access. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support. You can also sign up for our newsletters for regular updates.

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