Western Australia has recorded 222 new local cases of COVID-19, including the first of this outbreak in a remote Indigenous community.
Seven travel-related infections were also recorded.
Two of the cases are in hospital, with one of the patients unvaccinated against COVID. Neither is in ICU.
WA Premier Mark McGowan said COVID-related hospitalisations tended to lag behind case numbers.
"As your case numbers go up, your hospitalisations go up a couple of weeks later," he said.
"The reality is in a week or two … you can have hundreds of people in hospital."
Sunday's figures bring the total number of active COVID-19 cases in WA to 1,044.
Remote community in lockdown
WA Health has confirmed two of the new cases are in the Mantamaru community, 1,000km north-east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
Mantamaru, which is in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands on the edge of the Gibson Desert, is a few hundred kilometres from the Northern Territory and South Australian borders.
The community, which is also known as Jameson, has been placed in lockdown.
The ABC understands they are the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a remote West Australian Aboriginal community in the current outbreak.
Five close contacts have been identified and all are in isolation.
There are believed to be about 50 people in the community working with police and health authorities to keep the community safe.
Community 'not panicked': Shire president
President of the Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku, Damian McLean, said the focus was on slowing the spread, not eliminating the virus.
"The plans that are around now reflect much higher levels of vaccination and an understanding that it is about managing the spread, realistically, or slowing the spread," Mr McLean said.
"At the moment, Jameson [Mantamaru] is effectively in a community lockdown so people are staying within the community and people are not going into the community, and that will be reviewed after about seven days."
He said third dose coverage in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands was low due to second doses being more recent.
But Mr McLean said higher immunity levels and warmer weather meant an outbreak now would do less damage than one in winter.
"People are fairly recently vaccinated in many cases, so it's probably emerged now at a time that probably works better than it coming later and the effect of people's vaccinations are coming down, and we've got colder weather," Mr McLean said.
He also confirmed the Ngaanyatjarra Lands was facing a nurse shortage.
"[Numbers] are lower at the moment but that is more a reflection of what was the requirement to isolate," Mr McLean said.
"Now that there's no longer a requirement, those numbers will probably stabilise again quite quickly."
He said people in Mantamaru were taking the restrictions seriously but were not overly worried or panicked.
"People in the communities here now have had quite a lot of contact with people in places like Mutijulu, Kintore, Docker River, Pipalyatjara, family that have actually had COVID or are experiencing COVID within their community, so they're a lot calmer about what it all might mean," Mr McLean said.
"People are more measured, but still really careful about what it means for contact with other people."
Meanwhile, the government said demand for COVID vaccinations, including the booster shot, was increasing across the state.
It said a third dose "vaccination blitz" was underway, with an extra 40,000 appointments available at state-run clinics.
As of Friday, the double-dose vaccination rate for people aged 12 and over in WA was at 95.3 per cent.
Vaccination mandates to stay: Premier
Mark McGowan said public health measures, including venue capacity limits, mask mandates and the use of QR code check-ins, would be regularly reviewed.
"The 2 square metre rule is mild. South Australia has had 4 square metres, and for some venues, it's had 7 square metres," he said.
"We've just got to monitor the growth in cases and the growth in hospitalisations.
"I'm reluctant to go to the 4 square metre rule, I really don't want to go there unless we absolutely have to."
But he said WA's vaccination mandate would remain for a "considerable period of time".
"The other states, New South Wales and Victoria, had widespread COVID outbreaks. Hundreds, thousands of people dying. So obviously people were rushing to get vaccinated," he said.
"We didn't get the outbreak that drove vaccination levels. That's why we needed to mandate the first dose, second dose, and we mandated the third dose.
"The mandates have worked. We need to keep them in place because we need to get that third dose vaccination rate up."
