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, December 30, 2022.
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
- Northern Territory
- South Australia
- Queensland
- Western Australia
- Australian Capital Territory
- Tasmania
News you may have missed
- Family members of inmates at one of WA's biggest prisons were left devastated after Christmas Eve visits were cancelled amid another COVID-19 outbreak. Read the full story here
- India's government has announced that it will end its free food program on December 31 after 28 months because the economic situation has improved since COVID-19 cases and restrictions have eased. Read the full story here
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New South Wales
The state recorded 27,655 new cases today, down from 38,610 last week.
There are 1,712 cases in hospital, with 45 of those in intensive care.
Another 32 COVID-19 deaths have been recorded.
Victoria
There are 16,568 new cases this week, down from 24,238 recorded last week.
The state recorded 69 more COVID-19 deaths.
There are 715 cases in hospital, 33 of those in intensive care.
Northern Territory
There have been 369 new COVID-19 cases in the Northern Territory in the past week.
There are 47 people in hospital with COVID-19.
No new deaths have been reported.
South Australia
South Australia recorded 7,671 new cases of COVID-19 in the past week.
Last week the state had 10,474 cases.
There are 14 patients in intensive care, with 255 in hospital.
There have been 18 deaths.
Queensland
Queensland Health says there will be no COVID-19 numbers released until January 13.
Last week, the state recorded 15,325 new cases and 12 deaths.
Western Australia
Similarly, case numbers for Western Australia will be published on Friday, January 6.
It will break down each day's case total since December 23.
Last week, the state recorded 10,828 new cases and 34 deaths.
Australian Capital Territory
ACT health has not yet published its weekly COVID-19 case update.
Tasmania
Tasmania recorded 3,194 new cases in the past seven days.
There are 113 patients in hospital across the state, with two in intensive care.
One thing to know: Travellers will no longer be required to quarantine to enter China
From January 8, 2023, China's inbound travellers won't need to quarantine upon arrival, as the country takes a major step towards easing restrictions at its borders.
Strict requirements on inbound travellers have remained in place since 2020, including five days of mandatory quarantine at a government-supervised facility and three more of isolation at home.
But China made an abrupt policy U-turn this month, dropping nearly all of its domestic COVID-19 curbs in a move that has left hospitals across the country scrambling to cope with a nationwide wave of infections.
Travellers entering China will still have to undergo PCR testing 48 hours before departing their port of origin, the health authority said.
You can continue reading this story here.
Australia had more than 10 million COVID cases this year. But how many more went unrecorded?
Since January 1, 2022, more than 10 million COVID cases have been diagnosed and reported through either a PCR or RAT test.
The short answer is we don’t know how many cases are going unrecorded. Are we catching half of all cases? Thirty per cent? One in 10? It’s hard to know for sure.
Professor James McCaw, one of the leaders of the Doherty Institute team, says his team knows most cases are being missed each day, but they only have a fairly vague idea of what the case ascertainment actually is.
“I would expect case ascertainment is somewhere around 10 to 25 per cent, with a lot of uncertainty," he says.
If we do have a case ascertainment range of 10-25 per cent, that meant that last week, when there were about 107,000 cases reported, there were actually between 428,000 and 1.1 million people infected.
You can continue reading this story here.
One more thing: Patients concerned over uncertain future for government-funded long COVID clinics
Long COVID patients are concerned specialist clinics for their conditions will close when a Commonwealth funding arrangement expires at the end of the year.
It will be up to the state and territory health departments to decide whether they continue running the clinics next year, but the governments of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland would not confirm whether they would keep all clinics open.
Some patients have already been told their clinics are closing, with Melbourne's Austin Hospital confirming its long COVID clinic will close at the end of 2022.
