There will be no NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report published on 25 December or 1 January. Data on respiratory infection notifications can be found at Notifiable diseases data.
The next NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report will be published on 8 January 2026.
Influenza is at a high level of activity. COVID-19 is at a low level of activity. RSV is at a low level of activity.
Influenza activity continued to increase and is now at a high level. The level of activity and increasing trend are very unusual for this time of year. This pattern is being driven predominantly by influenza A and, in particular, a new variant of subtype H3N2, subclade K. An In Focus on influenza is included at the end of this report. COVID-19 and RSV remained at a low level of activity.
NSW Health continually reviews the methods used to monitor respiratory virus activity in New South Wales. This is due to changes in testing, notification patterns and levels of respiratory virus, including COVID-19, in the community. These changes affect the usefulness of notifications for monitoring virus activity and community transmission over time. The Public Health, Rapid, Emergency and Syndromic Surveillance (PHREDSS) data, COVID-19 Wastewater Surveillance Program, Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) data and the NSW Sentinel Laboratory Network results are currently of most value for monitoring COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses of importance in the community. Public registration of positive COVID-19 rapid antigen tests (RAT) in NSW ceased on 30 September 2023. NSW Health also monitors COVID-19 outbreaks in residential aged-care facilities that are published by the Australian Government and COVID-19 antiviral prescriptions dispensed in NSW.
The data source for this report updates as new information becomes available. Therefore, this report cannot be directly compared to previous versions of the NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report or to previous reporting periods. For additional information on the data sources and methods presented within this report, please refer to COVID-19 surveillance report data sources and methodology.
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