Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stressed Australia’s health systems are more than equipped to handle a rising number of Omicron infections.

Mr Morrison has urged people not to solely focus on case numbers, despite infections exploding in states and territories in recent days.

However, he said levels of COVID-19 patients being treated in intensive care and on ventilators remained stable following the rise in cases.

“It’s important that with the rising case numbers, we see that the severeness of this illness is already being shown to be around 75 per cent less than what we saw with Delta,” Mr Morrison told the Seven Network on Monday.

“Rising case numbers is part of the Omicron period, it’s part of the new phase of the pandemic we’re in.”

More than 32,000 COVID-19 cases were reported nationwide in the 24 hours to Saturday evening, most of them in NSW.

The prime minister said talks were under way with state and territory leaders to ensure health systems were able to meet a potential surge.

Mr Morrison said it was important people monitor their symptoms for COVID-19 during the new phase of the pandemic.

It’s something the prime minister has been doing himself in recent days after a COVID-positive case visited Kirribilli House last week during a press conference.

While Mr Morrison was heading to Canberra on Monday for discussions on concession arrangements for rapid-antigen tests, he ruled out making it free for everyone.

“We’re now in a stage of the pandemic where you can’t just make everything free,” he said.

“When someone tells you they want to make something free, someone’s always going to pay for it, and it’s going to be you.”

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said the government had failed to prepare for a shift away from PCR testing and called for rapid-antigen tests to be made more available.

“(The government) has moved away from PCR testing because of the debacle when it came to people queuing for hours on hours, without putting in place access to rapid-antigen tests for the population,” he told ABC Radio.

“Certainly no one should be excluded from getting a rapid-antigen test because of their income.”

Mr Albanese said he also supported calls from the Pharmacy Guild of Australia for GST to be removed from the rapid tests.

Infectious diseases expert Professor Mary-Louise McLaws has implored the prime minister to make the rapid tests free for everyone.

She also called on the government to increase testing capacity.

“Absolutely we need to have more testing done, and I was really disappointed the way that the government only wants to really test those who have been exposed for four hours,” she told the ABC.

“You don’t need four hours to be exposed to either Delta or Omicron.”

In the 24 hours to Saturday evening, 32,341 COVID-19 cases were reported nationwide: 18,278 of them in NSW, 7172 in Victoria, 3587 in Queensland, 2298 in South Australia and 506 in the ACT.

There were three virus-related deaths recorded in Victoria on Sunday and two in NSW.

By Andrew Brown in Canberra