31 Jan 2022

More Covid-19 deaths in Australia as cases, hospitalisations keep climbing

2:24 pm on 31 January 2022

New South Wales has recorded 27 new Covid-19 deaths and the number of people with the virus in hospital remained steady at 2779.

Health workers wait for cars to arrive so they can conduct Covid-19 testing at the St. Vincents Hospital, Bondi, Sydney. 6 July 2021

Health workers wait for cars to arrive so they can conduct Covid-19 testing at the St. Vincents Hospital (file image). Photo: AFP

While the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital rose by 116 in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday, the seven day average is 2762.

Of the Covid-19 patients in hospital, 185 are in ICU.

A total of 13,026 new cases were confirmed with 5664 from positive rapid-antigen tests (RATs) and 7362 from PCR swabs.

When it comes to vaccinations, almost 40 percent of those eligible have had a booster shot.

As students return to school, 78.5 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds are double vaccinated while 38.7 percent of children aged five to 11 have had one dose of vaccine.

Victoria

Victoria has recorded eight further Covid-19-related deaths, while the number of new infections reported and people in hospital has continued a downwards trend.

The number of people in hospital is 873, down from the 889 reported on Sunday, which was down from the 953 recorded on Saturday.

Of those patients, 102 are in intensive care units, of whom 33 are on a ventilator.

There were 10,053 new cases officially detected.

That tally was split by 6485 rapid antigen tests (RATs) and 3568 PCR test results.

It brings the total number of official active cases to 76,335, down from the 78,294 reported a day earlier.

Tasmania

Tasmania recorded 504 new cases and no deaths.

Sixteen people are in hospital with Covid-19, seven of whom are being treated specifically for their coronavirus symptoms.

Daily case numbers have been on a downward trend since mid-January, with the number of people in hospital each day following about a week behind.

But last week saw dozens of deaths reported, and the death toll has climbed to nearly 2000 lives lost since the pandemic began.

Daily infection numbers are expected to rise again when more than 1 million students return to face-to-face school learning from today.

But it is hoped climbing vaccination rates will prevent against a spike such as that seen over the festive period

ACT

The Australian Capital Territory has recorded 537 new cases and no deaths, while there are 62 people in hospital with two in ICU.

- ABC

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