South Australia has reported another death from COVID-19 – a woman in her 50s.
The number of patients in hospital has risen by 21 to 211, while there are 22 people in ICU and four people on ventilators.
SA's case count has plunged to 2,921, down from 4,024 yesterday, after 18,433 PCR tests and 700 RATs.
Today's numbers are also significantly less than the 4,506 cases recorded on Sunday.
Premier Steven Marshall said the reduced case numbers was "a very good result".
However yesterday, he warned the state was "not at the peak yet".
"That's likely to occur before the end of this month," he said.
Today, he said authorities were expecting hospitalisations would continue to grow.
"In terms of hospitalisations, this lags behind new cases and we see that there were 211 people in hospital yesterday, so that's an increase from 188 the day before — so we are seeing that number climb," he said.
"That relates, of course, to those new infections reported some time ago."
Meanwhile, 44 per cent of eligible South Australians had now had their booster shot.
"Our vaccination numbers bounced back yesterday," Mr Marshall said.
"Every day, more and more people become eligible [for their booster]."
Despite the drop in overall case numbers on Tuesday, he said there were increasing numbers of SA Health staff — including SA Ambulance Service staff — testing positive or being furloughed.
He said 480 SA Health staff were COVID-positive, 41 of whom work for SA Ambulance.
A total of 776 staff across SA Health have been furloughed, but "many of these people can continue to work with our community response care team", he said.
Hot weather closes testing sites temporarily
Testing sites have been shut until Tuesday evening across the metropolitan area because of hot weather.
"We put in place the testing arrangements that we had last week and the week before when we had very hot days," Mr Marshall said.
"The stations that were outdoors and drive-through were not going to be open between 11 o'clock and 6pm, but of course, we've extended the hours for those sites to work further into the night so that we can get those PCR tests we need."
