Deadliest day yet in NSW: 12 deaths, 1431 new cases

There have been 119 COVID-19 related deaths in NSW since 16 June 2021, and 175 in total since the start of the pandemic.

There are currently 979 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital, with 160 people in intensive care, 63 of whom are on ventilators.

Twelve more deaths from COVID-19 have been reported, as the death toll from the Delta outbreak reaches 119 since the first case was detected in mid-June. More than 25,000 cases have emerged since then.

The state's ongoing sewage surveillance program has recently detected fragments of the virus at a number of sites. The affected treatment plants were: Jindabyne, Cooma and Bega in Southern NSW, Bombaderry in Illawarra Shoalhaven, Wauchope on Mid North Coast and Blayney in Western NSW.

A whopping 154,00 tests were carried out across the state on Thursday.

More than seven million vaccines have been administered in NSW, and with more than 827,000 people coming forward for vaccination during the week it is expected the 70 per cent of the state will be fully-vaccinated by mid-October.

"The next fortnight is likely to be our worst in terms of the number of cases," Ms Berejiklian said.

"But as I have said it is not the number of cases we need to be focusing on but how many of those cases and up in our intensive care wards and hospitals and how many people we have vaccinated as quickly (as we can)."

READ MORE:

The breakdown of the 1431 locally-acquired cases reported to 8pm Thursday night is:

Yesterday NSW recorded 1288 new COVID cases in the overnight reporting period as well as seven more deaths as the state surpassed the seven million vaccines mark.

The deaths included two men in their 80s, a man in his 50s, a woman in her 70s, a man in his 70s and a woman in her 80s.