It has been revealed that more than 100 healthcare workers across Western NSW are currently in isolation.
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Speaking to media on Thursday, Western NSW Local Health District chief executive Scott McLachlan said the number currently stood at 126.
"That number has grown in the last 24 hours and we know that locations of concern and confirmed cases have been circulating around our community, but we want to keep our healthcare workers safe," he said.
"We've got some amazing teams across our private hospitals in Dubbo, Bathurst and Orange and we'd really welcome their assistance and support right through our acute hospital services, our community based teams and our vaccination and testing teams.
"We'll be working with the private hospitals in the next week to help identify the service staff can provide."
One of Thursday's positive cases was initially identified in the Bathurst LGA, reported to be an inmate at Bathurst Correctional Centre, however it was later deemed to be a Dubbo case.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro said that the intention is to lift restrictions in regional NSW on August 28.
"That's almost a blunt commitment and we'll do that based on if there are any active COVID cases in that LGA, in the sewage surveillance are there any fragments and secondly, are you adjoining another LGA that has high case numbers," he said.
"If you tick any of those boxes you won't be coming out."
Although there were no new fragments of COVID detected in Orange's sewage, the Mr McLachlan was concerned by the lack of people getting tested. In the past 24 hours he said that around 470 COVID tests were conducted in Orange, and around 8000 for the whole of Western NSW, a drop of 2000 from the day before (Wednesday).
"I'd love to see those numbers continue to climb, particularly in those areas we've got active cases or had recent sewage tests show positive COVID fragments," Mr McLachlan added.
"We currently have four patients in hospital and one in intensive care. We also have four children being accommodated in the hospital, but not requiring acute hospital care at the moment.
"We have over 170 patients being cared for in our community care services that are going into homes to provide specialist clinical care to both confirmed COVID cases and household contacts."
As of publishing, the number of confirmed cases in Western NSW stood at 161.
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