There’s a new public health order in NSW where it’s compulsory to report positive COVID-19 rapid antigen test (RAT) results and this order has had a massive impact on today’s case numbers.
NSW just recorded a whopping 92,264 new COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths, making today the deadliest day of the pandemic in NSW.
While today’s daily infection tally is more than double the January 8 result, ABC confirms that at least 61,387 of those cases were results taken from RAT results logged into the government’s new self-reporting system.
According to NSW Health, some cases included in the latest figures were from people who reported positive RATs on multiple days or had a positive PCR test during the same reporting period. ABC confirms that a total of 30,541 people tested positive from the PCR tests yesterday.
Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello told ABC that RAT results had gone over 82,000 as of 9 am. He further said that the government had expected a higher total case tally today as people are still continually registering their historical test results.
Mr. Dominello further told the ABC, “roughly speaking, about two-thirds of that work for tests conducted the last seven days and the other third for tests conducted from 1 January,”
