NSW recorded 262 new COVID cases from 95,000 tests in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said this morning at her daily coronavirus press conference.
There were another six overseas acquired cases.
Ms Berejiklian said 50 of the 262 cases were active in the community.
A woman in her 80s, who was not vaccinated, was the sole fatality yesterday.
There have been seven new confirmed cases in the Hunter New England Health District. Six of the new cases are from the Hunter and one is from Armidale.
The total number of cases in the health district is 20.
Four new cases have been reported in the Newcastle area Two are linked to the Blacksmith Beach gathering and two to the University of Newcastle.
There are also new cases in a student at Morisset High School, who is a close contact of a previously reported case, and man in his 30s from Raymond Terrace. The source of his infection is under investigation.
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Ms Berejeklian said the Canterbury-Bankstown area was still the epicentre of the NSW outbreak.
Deputy police commissioner Gary Warboys said Western Sydney was also the centre of police attention, with 171 of 454 infringement notices from south-western and north-western Sydney.
Ms Berejiklian said "more positively", the Georges River area was close to being taken out of the list of suburbs described as "areas of concern", and she urged as many people as possible to come forward for testing to give the experts "the confidence" to remove the listing.
She said another four Sydney suburbs had been added to the existing eight Local Government Areas listed as areas of concern.
The conference heard there were 362 people in NSW hospitals, including 58 in intensive care, of whom 54 were unvaccinated.
The NSW update followed news from Queensland, where Cairns goes into lockdown from 4pm today, with the south-east Queensland lockdown ending at the same time, but with some restrictions remaining in place.
Also yesterday morning, Federal Minister Greg Hunt said the Therapeutic Goods Administration was about a fortnight away from approving a third vaccine for Australia - the Moderna mRNA inoculation developed in the USA.
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