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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Hannah Neale

Hospitalisations stable as cases rise

The government has released for the first time a geographical breakdown of COVID infections showing Belconnen has had the most cases since mid-December.

ACT Health released the expanded data in an update for the week ending March 27, after explosive revelations by The Canberra Times that officials had blocked the release of important information and misled the public about the reasons why.

Since December 15, 12,461 of recorded cases have resided in Belconnen, 10,613 in Tuggeranong, 12,149 in Gungahlin, 7228 in North Canberra, 4449 in Woden Valley, 4341 in Weston Creek, 3167 in South Canberra, and 297 in Canberra East.

The BA.2 Omicron subvariant accounted for 87.5 per cent of tested samples in the week ending Sunday, the update also revealed, with this most transmissible variant thought to be driving an uptick in infections.

The results are drawn from whole genome sequencing which has been undertaken on three per cent of the territory's PCR samples since the beginning of 2022.

The ACT reported 1014 new infections to 8pm on Thursday, as numbers remained over 1000 for the the fourth consecutive day.

A man in his 40s was reported to have died with COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths in the ACT since the pandemic started to 42. However ACT Health would not provide any details of the man's vaccination status or any underlying health conditions, citing patient privacy concerns.

There was no information provided that could identify the man.

Announcing some extensions to quarantine exemptions for those who had already recovered from COVID-19, Acting Chief Health Officer Dr Vanessa Johnson said hospitalisations and ICU cases had not risen alongside daily cases.

"While case numbers have increased in recent weeks, it is a promising sign that our hospital and ICU cases have remained stable, which is why we have been able to make some minor additional changes to our public health requirements," Dr Johnson said.

Reporting on the vaccination status of people hospitalised with the virus over the course of the outbreak found that 55 per cent who had been in intensive care were unvaccinated, while 43 per cent of total hospitalisations were unvaccinated people.

Twenty-six per cent of those in intensive care had two doses, while 10 per cent had three doses, seven per cent had a single dose and one per cent were unknown.

Of those hospitalised, 37 per cent had two doses of a vaccine, 14 per cent had three doses, six per cent were vaccinated with a single dose and one per cent were unknown.

Hospitalisations for the week ending March 27 were 24, a drop from 29 admissions the previous week.

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