The number of COVID-19 patients in Hunter hospitals has halved in 11 days, prompting a leading physician to declare the worst of the omicron wave is over.
Hunter New England Health reported on Thursday that district hospitals were treating 55 COVID-19 patients, down from 64 the previous day and less than half the mid-January peak of 116.
NSW COVID-19 hospital occupancy has stabilised at about 2700 over the past week and stood at 2722 on Thursday.
The Hunter appears to be ahead of the state curve for hospital load after the Argyle House and Finnegan's Hotel super-spreader events in early December.
These nightclub outbreaks distributed the omicron variant rapidly across the Lower Hunter before it started infecting Sydney and regional populations in large numbers.
The editor of the Medical Journal of Australia, Dr Nick Talley, said the Hunter hospital numbers showed the worst of the omicron wave was over "for the time being".
"It's good data, but the problem remains we don't know what will happen when people go back to school and whether we'll have a spike," he said. "It's unclear. I hope not, but it's possible."
Laureate Professor Talley, a University of Newcastle researcher and staff specialist at John Hunter Hospital, said he was also worried that many older people had not yet had booster shots.
"I worry a bit that the un-boosted older population may not have had as much exposure as younger people.
"It's raced through younger adults. The risk is there's a lot of older people who are more vulnerable.
"But overall it's good news. It's certainly coming down, and let's hope we don't have any more major peaks like this."
HNEH reported the deaths of a man and a woman from Lake Macquarie local government area. One was aged in their 70s and the other in their 80s.
Seven of the Hunter's COVID-19 cases are in intensive care.
NSW recorded 17,316 new cases on Thursday, comprising 7382 via rapid antigen testing and 9934 from PCR tests.
Hunter New England accounted for 958 of the positive RATs, the most of any health district, and 1090 of the PCR test positives.
Of the 29 people who died in NSW, two were in their 60s, eight in their 70s, 13 in their 80s and six in their 90s.
Seven of those who died were not vaccinated.
Professor Talley said older people had avoided exposure to the virus by remaining in a "shadow lockdown".
"My message is to please get boosted. The booster numbers aren't good enough for the adults."
Just over one third of NSW adults have received a vaccine booster shot.
The most recent NSW COVID-19 surveillance report shows that 1 per cent of double-dosed cases in the six weeks to January 8 ended up in hospital, compared with 8.9 per cent of unvaccinated people who caught the virus.
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