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ABC News
ABC News
Health
Jessica Rendall

Queensland records 13 COVID-19 deaths and 3,660 new cases

Chief Health Officer John Gerrard gave a COVID-19 update in Brisbane. (ABC News: Lucas Hill)

Queensland has recorded 13 deaths from COVID-19 and 3,660 new cases in the latest reporting period.

The number of people hospitalised with COVID has continued to drop, with 508 people in hospitals across the state, down from 535 on Friday.

Forty-nine of those patients in hospital are in intensive care.

Those who died in the past 24 hours were aged in their 50s, 60s 80s and 90s, and six of them were in aged care.

Six of them were unvaccinated and only four had received a booster.

Chief Health Office John Gerrard said there could have been more new cases in the past 24 hours but data issues had caused a lag in reporting.

"There have been some technical issues with regard to data collection, so that's probably likely to be a bit of an underestimate," Dr Gerrard said.

Dr Gerrard said additional cases would be announced in the next 24 hours.

He said the continuing fall in the state's hospitalisation rate was indicative that many regions had passed the peak of the Omicron wave.

"That fall in numbers in hospitals continues on a daily basis," Dr Gerrard said.

Three doses of vaccine 'critical'

Dr Gerrard said Queensland handled the Omicron wave "much better than we expected".

"This is due to vaccination," Dr Gerrard said.

"We were predicting at least three to 5,000 admissions to hospitals across Queensland, and in the end there were less than 1,000 admissions at public hospitals in Queensland."

"We fared much better than we had expected and this is clearly due to vaccination.

Treasurer Cameron Dick urged Queenslanders to follow the latest health advice and get their booster shot.

It follows the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) flagging plans to change its definition of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with people aged over 16 years to only be considered "up to date" with their vaccinations if they have had booster shots.

"The story of COVID for Queensland has been if you follow the health advice, everything else follows, including the best economic recovery in the country," Mr Dick said.

"So I think we have to listen to the experts.

"It's very important to get three vaccine shots — that's critical.

"Now we know that the death and the illness rate for people who aren't boosted is much much higher than those people who have got a double dose or, worse, not vaccinated at all."

Across the state, 90.22 per cent of Queenslanders have now been fully vaccinated, while 40.65 per cent of children aged five to 11 have received their first dose.

Data shows many older Australians haven't had their booster
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