1431 new COVID-19 cases and 12 more deaths in NSW

New South Wales has recorded 1431 new locally-acquired cases and 12 deaths overnight. Today's numbers were the highest daily infection figures ever recorded by an Australian jurisdiction. The 12 deaths represented the highest number recorded in NSW in a day.

One of the 12 fatalities was an unvaccinated woman in her 30s in south-west Sydney who died at home on September 1. She was tested for COVID-19 on August 31. The other 11 deaths were people in their 70s, 80s and 90s. 

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has again warned that health authorities expected a peak in cases in the next fortnight.

 “The next fortnight is likely to be our worst in terms of the number of cases, but as I have said it is not the number of cases we need to be focusing on but how many of those cases end up in our intensive care wards and hospitals and how many people we have vaccinated,” Gladys Berejiklian said.

Epidemiologist Professor Adrian Esterman says the reproductive rate of the Covid in NSW is remaining steady, and not increasing, despite an increase in cases today.

His predictions have been fairly accurate so far, and he says the state should hit 2000 cases a day by September 10.

Ms Berejiklian said her government would next week release modelling that showed how many people it expected to end up in hospital with COVID-19 in September and October

"September and October will be the most challenging because we are going [to be] dealing with extra hospitalisations and extra ICU hospitalisations” she said.

Nearly 11,000 people with coronavirus are being cared for by NSW Health.The majority of these people are in the community or in health hotels. There are 979 people in hospital and 160 in ICU – 63 of which are ventilated.

More than 827,000 have come forward to get vaccinated in the past week.