NSW respiratory surveillance reports - COVID-19 and influenza

Latest surveillance report

The current wave of COVID-19 transmission in NSW continues to decline. The seven-day hospitalization average is the lowest it has been at any time in 2022. This period of lower activity is likely to continue over the next few weeks.
BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants are currently the dominant (93%) strains.
We are closely monitoring S-gene target failure and sequencing data in relation to BA.2 sub-lineages. There are some early suggestions that BA.2.75 infections are increasing. We are also monitoring other emerging variants.
PCR testing for COVID-19 has decreased by 11.7% compared to the previous week. The proportion of PCR tests that were positive for COVID-19 is stable at 6%.
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 has decreased by 10.4%. At the end of this week 1,044 people were hospitalised compared to 1,165 at the end of last week. There were 238 people with COVID-19 admitted to hospital and 27 people admitted to ICU this week. Hospital admissions include people with COVID-19 who are admitted for other reasons.
There were 75 COVID-19 deaths reported this week. Of these, 10 (13%) had not received three doses of vaccine. One death was of a person aged under 65 years. Deaths may not have occurred in the week in which they were reported.

Influenza activity is currently at low levels but influenza vaccination continues to be recommended.
Of the 20,834 tests conducted for influenza at sentinel laboratories, the proportion of positive tests remains low and stable below 1%.
There were 3 emergency department presentations for ‘influenza-like illness’ (ILI) requiring a hospital admission in the previous week. 8% of all ILI emergency department presentations required a hospital admission.
Detections of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) have decreased this week. Data from sentinel laboratories show 195 cases detected this week, compared to 360 cases detected last week.