Intensive care rates remain lower than the most "optimistic" scenario and hospital admissions will drop in the next week, according to the latest COVID-19 modelling in NSW.
Premier Dominic Perrottet said the state was "tracking within capacity" and the trends were "positive".
Hospital admissions have plateaued over the past week, as predicted, and modelling released today by the NSW government showed the number of seriously ill people in ICU had been below "best case" scenarios.
NSW Health said a total of 2,737 people with the virus were now in the state's hospitals, of whom 189 were in ICU.
Although hospital rates have been bouncing around slightly, NSW Health deputy secretary Susan Pearce said a decline was expected next week.
"They might not follow a lovely curve, and it may be a bit lumpy but we do expect that in the coming week we will start to see some declines," she said.
The modelling shows that NSW has had far more hospital and ICU capacity over the last month than New York and has been more comparable with the capacity of hospitals in London and Gauteng in South Africa.
However, NSW hospital admissions recently surpassed those seen in London and Gauteng and are set to remain higher next month.
NSW today recorded 70 COVID-19 deaths but half of these occurred at aged care facilities earlier this month.
NSW Health said today's death toll included 19 men and 16 women who were residents of facilities in south-western Sydney and died between January 2 and 20.
A spokesperson said relatives had been notified of the deaths at the time, but that there had been a delay in reporting them to NSW Health.
Of the 35 other people, who died in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday, one person was in their 40s, two were in their 60s, six were in their 70s, 11 in their 80s, 14 in their 90s and one was aged over 100.
Mr Perrottet said all schools that start back next week had now received rapid antigen tests (RATs) for students and staff.
"This has been a phenomenal effort, it has been a military operation," he said.
"We set out to achieve this a few weeks ago, we always thought it would be a substantive challenge — not just the procurement, but the distribution right across NSW, to public schools, [and] independent and Catholic schools."
RATs have been distributed to more than 3,000 state schools, as well as 5,000 childcare and early childhood centres
Transport for NSW has added an extra 3,400 bus services and 200 trains to help get kids to school during peak times.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard this morning suggested making the booster dose a requirement to be considered fully vaccinated.
The proposal comes amid slow uptake of booster shots in NSW, with many appointments at vaccine hubs being unclaimed, and concerns about vaccine wastage.
More than 36 per cent people in NSW have now had their booster shot.
Mr Hazzard told the ABC this morning he would like to see the third jab, currently being given as a booster, essential for people to be considered fully vaccinated across Australia.
He said this policy change would have to be made by national cabinet and wasn't sure why there hadn't been any progress on the issue yet.
"I'm not part of national cabinet, but I understand that most of these things require a range of medical expert input," he said.
"I think when you've got a committee of a large number of people, all giving their input, sometimes it takes a while to get there."
Mr Hazzard said there seemed to be major confusion among the public about who needed to get a booster and when.
"Mixed messaging that has come out probably as our situation has evolved over the last particularly 12 months where we have had vaccines and some people are confused about when they can have it after they've had COVID," he said.
"But [there] is a very clear message now: four to six weeks after you've had COVID, you can have the booster."
Ms Pearce yesterday said hundreds of thousands of booster appointments in NSW were going "begging" and the government wanted to be delivering three times the doses currently being administered.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) this morning provisionally approved the use of Pfizer's booster vaccine for 16 and 17 year olds who have already had two doses of a COVID vaccine.
Booster doses of Pfizer for this age group had already been approved for use in the US, Israel and the UK.
The TGA said it was continuing to monitor ongoing trials associated with booster doses for younger children.
There were 13,333 new cases recorded in the reporting period, of which 7,077 were from positive RATs and 6,256 were from PCR swabs.
