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 The death, a man in his 80s with underlying health conditions,
marked a grim milestone for the country which has had to reverse
some parts of a staged reopening after nearly two years of
stop-start lockdowns, due to the fresh outbreak.
Omicron, which health experts say appears more contagious but less
virulent than previous strains, began to spread in the country just
as it lifted restrictions on most domestic borders and allowed
Australians to return from overseas without quarantine, driving case
numbers to the highest of the pandemic.
The authorities gave no additional details about the Omicron death,
except to say that the man caught the virus at an aged care facility
and died in a Sydney hospital.
"This was the first known death in New South Wales (state) linked to
the Omicron variant of concern," said NSW Health epidemiologist
Christine Selvey in a video released by the government.
The man was among seven COVID-19 deaths reported in Australia the
previous day. The country clocked 10,186 new cases nationwide,
according to a Reuters calculation of state data, its first total
over 10,000 since the start of the pandemic. Most new cases were in
NSW and Victoria.
"Although we are seeing increased case numbers... we are not seeing
the impacts on our hospital system," said Annastacia Palaszczuk,
premier of Queensland which reported 784 new cases with four people
in hospital.
With reports of six-hour wait times for COVID testing for people
hoping to meet requirements for interstate holiday travel,
Palaszczuk defended the tourism-friendly state for mandatory
testing, saying "everyone knew when they booked a ticket that if
they wanted to come here they would have to do a PCR test".
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 However, she added that
Queensland was considering whether to relax
testing requirements for domestic visitors.
Tasmania, another tourist-popular state, also
said it was considering changes to state border
testing rules. Around the
country, the surge in infections meanwhile weighed on testing
resources. Sydney testing clinic SydPath had confirmed a day earlier
that it wrongly told 400 COVID-positive people they were negative in
the days before Christmas; on Monday it now realised it sent wrong
result messages to another 995 people.
Australian authorities have so far resisted a return to lockdown in
the face of surging case numbers but have reinstated some
restrictions. On Monday, NSW again made it compulsory to check into
public venues with QR codes, while many states have brought back
mandatory mask-wearing in indoor public places.
The country has also narrowed the window for vaccine booster shots
from six months to four months, soon to be three months.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Michael Perry)
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