Here's a quick wrap of the COVID-19 news and case numbers from each Australian jurisdiction for the past week, as reported on Friday, January 6, 2023.
The states and territories are now reporting their COVID-19 statistics weekly instead of through the daily updates that were provided from the early days of the pandemic.
This story will be updated throughout the day, so if you do not see your state or territory, check back later.
You can jump to the COVID-19 information you want to read by clicking below.
- New South Wales
- Victoria
- Queensland
- ACT
- Tasmania
- South Australia
- Northern Territory
- Western Australia
News you may have missed
- The latest COVID-19 outbreak appears to be largely sweeping through Australians who have not yet had the disease, with data showing only one in five people who reported an infection in December having had the virus before.
- Australia is experiencing a post-COVID baby boom, according to recent statistics, after an historically low number of births during the pandemic.
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New South Wales
NSW has recorded 77 deaths and 19,793 new cases of COVID-19 for the week of January 2, although not all COVID fatalities occurred during the reporting period.
There are 1,662 people in hospital with the virus, including 49 in ICU.
Victoria
Victoria has recorded 108 deaths and 12,349 new cases, with a daily average hospital occupancy of 689.
There are 32 patients in ICU.
Queensland
The Sunshine State is yet to release its weekly COVID figures, but in a statement, Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said reported case numbers had dropped by 30 per cent between late December and early January.
“On 20 December, Queensland recorded 15,325 active cases compared to our post-Christmas number of 10,696 on 4 January,” Dr Gerrard said.
“Hospitalisations however have been slower to decline. They peaked at 599 on December 20 and had only fallen 10 per cent to 540 by January 4.
“We suspect this stems from an increase in older Queenslanders getting infected over the Christmas period and the association of age with more severe disease and hospitalisation."
ACT
The ACT has recorded four deaths and 1,436 new cases of COVID-19.
There are 73 people in hospital, including seven in ICU and two who are ventilated.
Tasmania
There have been 1,925 new cases recorded in Tasmania in the past week.
There are 77 people in hospital with COVID, and two of those are in intensive care.
South Australia
South Australia's COVID numbers have dropped for the second consecutive week.
There were 4,954 cases in the last week after 7,671 cases were recorded in the previous reporting period.
The number of people in hospital with COVID also fell from 255, down to 185.
There were 20 deaths reported in the past week.
Northern Territory
The Territory has recorded 406 new cases of COVID-19.
There are 15 patients in hospital.
Western Australia
Western Australia has recorded 6,675 new cases of COVID-19.
For that week there were a total 252 of people with COVID-19 in hospital, six in intensive care.
There have been 29 deaths reported in the past week, dating back to November 29.
One thing to know — a new variant has been detected in Australia
It's called the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5.
Described as "highly contagious," the variant has rapidly spread across the United States with a very small number of cases emerging here in Australia.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's (WHO) Covid-19 technical lead, has described it as "the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet".
However, there isn't enough data to know how severe its impact will be.
Travelling from China? You'll need to test negative first
As of this week, people coming into the country from China, Hong Kong and Macau have to take a pre-departure COVID-19 test and provide a negative result before departing.
Australia's health minister, Mark Butler, said this decision taken was out of an "abundance of caution" and a temporary measure due to concerns about a lack of detailed information about the epidemiological situation in China.
China scrapped its stringent COVID controls last month after protests against them, abandoning a policy that had been in place for three years.
But it's prompted concerns from the WHO and some world leaders, who say Chinese officials are under-representing the data.
One more thing...
A "uniquely Australian" mix of variants will make treating severe COVID-19 more challenging, according to new research.
A new paper spearheaded by the Kirby Institute in Sydney looked at 15 COVID-19 variants in circulation in Australia in 2022, and how successful two types of monoclonal antibodies — Evusheld and Sotrovimab — were in offering protection.
Monoclonal antibodies are a key tool doctors use to treat severe COVID-19, and are particularly important for severely immunocompromised patients or people who cannot get vaccinated.
The research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found Evusheld was ineffective against all variants tested. Sotrovimab still provided some protection against most of the variants currently in circulation, but at a slightly lower level of effectiveness.
