Case numbers in WA have risen again after dipping over the weekend, with 4,037 new infections recorded.
It comes after the number of new cases fell on each of the last two days, with 3,602 announced yesterday and 4,300 on Saturday, after the total surpassed 5,000 for the first time on Friday.
There are now 25,775 active cases in the state, including 109 in hospital.
The number of ICU patients has dropped from five yesterday to one today.
COVID peak 'still to come'
WA Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the state was expected to hit its peak of about 10,000 daily COVID cases around the middle or end of this week, with infections expected to double every two to three days.
Ms Sanderson said the government remained "hopeful" it could start easing level two restrictions by the end of the month.
But she said authorities were cautious not to lift them too early.
Most of the new positive cases were detected by self-reported rapid antigen tests, with those accounting for 2,164 infections compared to 1,873 positive PCR tests.
A total of 9,308 PCR swabs were taken yesterday.
One in five testing positive
On Friday, 2,866 of the new cases were picked up from 14,090 PCR tests — a positivity rate of about 20.3 per cent.
Today's positivity rate is about the same at 20.1 per cent.
The seven-day average for the positivity rate continues to climb, from 2.4 per cent last Monday to 16.3 per cent today.
"That indicates a high number of cases in the community that aren't being picked up by testing," Ms Sanderson said.
She said people not getting tested, and higher rates of asymptomatic disease because of higher vaccination rates, could also be a contributing factor.
WA's booster dose rate currently sits at 70.1 per cent for people aged over 16.
Hospitals to 'fill in gaps' amid nurse shortage
Hospitals are expected to cope with the coming wave of infections, but the head of ICU at Royal Perth Hospital, Anton Leonard, said there would be some pressures.
"We need more nurses. There's a state shortage of nurses, there's an international shortage of nurses," he said.
While the hospital had already trained an additional 30 nurses, he said plans were in place to bring in other staff if needed.
But Dr Leonard said the hospital's response would be helped by a new 24-bed ICU facility, which will start accepting patients on Wednesday.
The beds were planned before the pandemic, but Ms Sanderson said they had been moved forward to help cope with COVID patients.
Elective surgery scaled back ahead of surge
From today, public hospitals will start winding back elective surgery, with private facilities to follow next week.
Ms Sanderson said that would be reviewed, and changes made if necessary.
"If we need to scale that backup, we will," she said.
"The impact is not just on beds, it's staffing, and whilst we're coping now, we do want to have the capacity to, if we see a sudden surge in hospitalisations, to be able to manage that staffing furlough issue."
Opposition health spokesperson, Libby Mettam, said she supported that decision, as long as it was necessary.
"We believe that it is a measured approach ... but we hope that elective surgeries are only cancelled when it is obvious and imminent that they need to be cancelled," she said.
Ms Mettam said once cases had passed the peak, the government needed to address the number of people waiting for elective surgery.
Decisions based on politics: Opposition
Both Ms Mettam and liberal leader David Honey also questioned why events like the Port to Pub swim had been cancelled under level two restrictions, but 30,000 people were allowed to attend Perth Stadium.
Dr Honey said it seemed like the decisions were based on politics more than medical advice.
"Who knows how the government make up their mind on events?" he said.
"It seems to me that it's picked on a popularity basis."
Ms Sanderson said the issue was not the race itself, but the congregating before and after.
"The information that I have was that organisers were reluctant to change that beginning and end, or were unable to, because of the nature of the event," she said.
"Therefore the risk was deemed too great as they would be potentially congregating without masks."
