The ACT has recorded 13 new locally acquired confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, all of them linked to known cases.

“This means we know how and where they become infected,” ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.

Eight of the new cases were in quarantine for their entire infectious period, while the remaining five were infectious in the community during at least part of their infectious period.

Ten people are in hospital in Canberra with or due to COVID-19. Some previous patients have recovered and been released and new cases have been admitted. Some do have pre-existing medical conditions.

Four of the cases in hospital are under 40 years of age and six are over 40.

One of the hospitalised cases remains in intensive care in critical condition; an unvaccinated woman in her 40s.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the ACT associated with this outbreak is at 250. Twenty cases have now recovered, bringing the active number of cases to 230.

Approximately 3,650 tests were conducted yesterday.

Ainslie Village social housing complex in Campbell has been named as an exposure site in the ACT; there is a high level of vaccination among residents. As at midday today, Sunday 29 August, it had not been added to the list of exposure sites on the ACT Government COVID-19 website, where the most recent update had occurred at 7.23pm Friday 27 August.

Mr Barr said the number of people in quarantine in the ACT has dropped from over 20,000 (around five per cent of the Territory’s population) at its peak on Thursday/Friday, 14 days since the snap lockdown began at 5pm on Thursday 12 August, to under 1,000 today.

ACT on the path to quashing outbreak

The ACT lockdown is due to end on September 2 but Mr Barr said there will need to be a staggered exit from restrictions.

He said he believes Canberra is on the path to quashing this outbreak.

“But we are still exposed to a new spark, another wave of the virus coming in to the ACT,” he said.

“So whatever we do between now and when we get to the very, very high levels of vaccination that we need, we are going to have to be very careful and measured in our response.”

He ruled out having different restrictions for different parts of the ACT depending on their rate of vaccination.

NSW, which surrounds the ACT, announced a record 1218 virus cases on Sunday and Mr Barr warned that that number may keep on growing, possibly reaching 2000 cases a day.

“Our hope, is that the NSW government’s more immediate and clear regional lockdowns have a much greater dampening effect on viral spread on the basis that they got into it earlier,” he said.

Around 64 per cent of Canberrans have had one coronavirus jab and just over 40 per cent have had two.

But Mr Barr believes it will require a continuous program of vaccination beyond hitting 70, 80 or even 95 per cent targets.

“All the evidence from the northern hemisphere suggests that the vaccines provide very effective protection but they do need to be boosted,” he said.

“I think we can anticipate, if COVID follows the path of other infectious diseases, that it’s with us for the rest of our lives and we will need to have a booster shot every year.”

With AAP

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