Two men in their 80s have died with COVID-19 in the ACT, on a day when the number of people in hospital with the virus rose slightly.
The territory reported 719 new cases of the coronavirus, down from 1007 new infections reported on Friday.
There were 152 people in hospital and one person in intensive care on Friday evening, who did not require ventilation support. There were 147 people with COVID-19 in Canberra hospitals in the 24 hours to 8pm on Thursday.
Authorities should take as much care with the air as they do with their water to help combat the latest surge in COVID-19 cases and future waves, a leading epidemiologist has said.
Adrian Esterman, who holds the chair in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Australia, said better ventilation and better vaccines would be vital to fighting the virus over the long term.
Despite high numbers of active cases across the country, he questioned how many public buildings, offices, factories and retail settings had conducted ventilation audits and taken steps to improve their air conditioning.
"It's the key. We wouldn't start drinking contaminated water, yet we seem quite happy to breathe contaminated air," Professor Esterman told a South Australian parliamentary committee.
"This is an airborne disease. Over 98 per cent of infections are airborne, probably even more than that. If it's an airborne disease, why aren't we looking after our air?"
Professor Esterman said there needed to be a nationally consistent approach to COVID-19, including consistent definitions of an infection and contact tracing techniques.
ACT Health authorities this week revealed they were unsure which way the COVID wave will go in the ACT, in an uncertain time where experts have predicted cases could fall while government modelling showed a peak was still to come.
ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the government was ramping up its campaign to encourage members of the public to wear face masks and stressed COVID-safe behaviours - including physical distancing, testing when symptomatic and mask wearing - remained very important amid significant community transmission.
Epidemiologists earlier told The Canberra Times they thought the latest COVID-19 wave in the ACT - driven by the highly infectious BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants - had peaked and would begin to fall.
with AAP
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