NSW Health released its latest surveillance report on the state’s coronavirus outbreak up until January 15.
Between November 26, when the omicron surge started in NSW, and January 15, the proportion of cases with “severe outcomes” was higher in people with less than two vaccine doses, the report said.
The number of cases with at least two doses is higher than the number of cases with less than that because of the high rates of vaccination coverage in the community.
Likewise, a high rate of hospitalisations, intensive-care admissions and deaths in people with three doses is pinned on the fact that mainly the elderly – who are more susceptible to severe outcomes – have had access to booster shots before most of the population.
Thirty-two of the state’s 234 coronavirus-related deaths were in aged care facilities between November 26 and January 15.
The report does not detail how many deaths in hospitals were of aged care residents. (At the weekend, 31 of the 52 deaths reported last Sunday were aged care residents).
The report also says there’s an overrepresentation of deaths of people with no vaccine dose, with the unvaccinated making up 53 of the 234 deaths between November 26 and January 15 – or nearly one in four deaths.
For Indigenous NSW residents, 65 per cent of infections were in people with two doses compared with 2 per cent with three doses.
Between June 16 – November 25, 80 per cent of infections of Indigenous people in NSW were those with no vaccine dose.
Young people were overrepresented in the number of infections between November 26 and January 15 with 20-29 year olds reporting the highest rate of infection relative to their population.
People aged 10-19 and 30-39 were also over-represented in infections.
Also between those dates, the proportion of omicron and delta – which caused months-long lockdowns across the east coast last year – was still relatively even in sequenced cases.
Of the 4720 sequenced cases, 2664 were delta and 2056 were omicron.
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