COVID-19 in Australia by the numbers: Week ending 17 March

Australia has posted its highest nationwide new case figure for COVID-19 since January.

More than 22,000 new cases were reported, marking the biggest week-on-week increase (over 12%) in reporting in three months.

The largest proportional jump was in the NT, which had nearly double last week’s new case figures (164 up from 87).

SA saw a similar jump, aligning to earlier predictions from the state’s chief health officer that the city would see a peak in cases around the time of its ‘Mad March’ festival season.

Only Queensland had a week-on-week decline in case numbers.

A mix of variants appears to be driving cases across the country. In New South Wales, XBB.1.5 is now the dominant subvariant, with the 1.9 subvariant also increasing in population coverage. In contrast, South Australia reports around a third of its variant samples are of the XBF recombinant strain, while over half are BA.2 variants.

COVID-19 in Australia

New South Wales

New cases reported:  8905 (7871 last week)
Deaths: 22 (36 last week)
Hospitalisations: 834 (808 last week)
ICU:  13 (19 last week)

Victoria

New cases reported: 3960 (3319 last week)
Deaths: 29 (33 last week)
Hospitalisations: 114 (94 last week)
ICU: 4 (1 last week)

Queensland

New cases reported: 3049 (3335 last week)
Deaths: 17 (12 last week)
Hospitalisations: 247 (257 last week)
ICU: 3 (8 last week)

Western Australia

New cases reported: 2625 (2546 last week)
Deaths: 29 (4 last week)
Hospitalisations: 59 (60 last week)
ICU: 1 (0 last week)

South Australia

New cases reported: 2347 (1712 last week)
Deaths: 8 (43 last week)
Hospitalisations: 59 (47 last week)
ICU: 3 (4 last week)

Tasmania

New cases reported: 722 (609 last week)
Deaths: 1 (3 last week)
Hospitalisations: 14 (15 last week)
ICU: 0 (1 last week)

ACT

New cases reported: 516 (395 last week)
Deaths: 1 (0 last week)
Hospitalisations: 14 (6 last week)
ICU: 0 (1 last week)

Northern Territory

New cases reported: 164 (87 last week)
Deaths: 0 (1 last week)
Hospitalisations: 4 (1 last week)
ICU: 0