The number of new COVID-19 cases in Western Australia has jumped sharply again to 4,535 in the latest reporting period, with three people now in intensive care.
That's almost one thousand more than yesterday's figure of 3,594.
Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said there were now 80 people in hospital, including the three in intensive care.
"I can't give you the exact status of everyone today of those 80 people, but we know it's around 50 per cent unvaccinated," Ms Sanderson said.
"We do know it's a very high number of unvaccinated people who are represented in those figures."
That is backed up by figures for the 73 people hospitalised with COVID-19 between February 1 and March 4, when 48 per cent were unvaccinated.
A further five per cent had received one dose of a vaccine, 26 per cent a second dose and 21 per cent a third dose.
"I certainly hope the higher level of hospitalisation of unvaccinated people convinces people to get vaccinated," Ms Sanderson said.
"There's no stronger evidence than this. This is in our community now, it's in our hospitals."
WA is now dealing with 18,012 active cases.
Of the new positive cases 2,440 were detected with PCR testing and 2,095 were the result of self-reported positive Rapid Antigen Tests.
There were 18,430 PRC tests conducted in total yesterday.
COVID hospitalisations jump
The number of people in hospital has more than doubled since Monday, when there were 36 people in hospital.
Ms Sanderson said this was the beginning of the curve up in hospital admissions.
"This is going to get difficult. We will see more people in hospital and more people in ICU," she said.
WA is now expected to reach the peak number of daily infections on Monday, with modelling suggesting about 10,000 people will test positive then.
In the week or two following that peak, hospitals are expected to be put under the greatest pressure, with about 443 general beds and 56 ICU beds predicted to be occupied on the busiest day.
Schools under contact tracing pressure
Meanwhile, school teachers are growing increasingly concerned about the requirement to contact trace the ever-growing number of cases in schools.
State School Teachers Union of WA secretary Pat Byrne said schools were not coping.
"Schools are simply not resourced to do this," she told ABC Radio Perth.
"I know of schools that are allocating three and four full-time equivalent staff to keeping up with not just the contact tracing, but the follow-up that goes with that."
Ms Byrne said these staff were having to communicate with parents and staff as well as keep track of the students and finding back-up teachers.
The stress this was causing was "massive".
"This is the third significant change to protocols in schools in six weeks," she said.
Under very high case load settings, which came into effect today, students who are asymptomatic close contacts and do not have a positive case in their household can keep going to school, but should isolate outside of that.
But Director General of Education Lisa Rodgers supported the move.
She said said early on, schools had been frustrated by having to wait for the Health Department to inform their community of positive cases.
But under the current model they could put information out quickly.
"Really I think it's helpful for communities and it's certainly helped principals in terms of how they can operationalise that communication to families fast," she said.
