Next COVID-19 variant reported to be 'more infectious', Raymond Terrace doctor urges community to 'remain vigilant'

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Thursday that preliminary data from the University of NSW had indicated that BA.2 cases could "more than double" within six weeks.

"It's very preliminary and we need to do a lot more digging ... but we are concerned at this point that BA.2 is amongst us."

The World Health Organisation announced last Wednesday that there was a new hybrid COVID-19 variant that combines the delta variant and the omicron variant - "but not much is known about severity or symptoms".

Meanwhile, there were more than 10,000 positive test results across NSW on Monday, including 883 in the Hunter New England region. There were 26 COVID cases receiving care in hospitals across the HNE district and two in intensive care.

While the NSW Education Department could not reveal how widespread the virus was in Hunter schools, a spokesperson said that a publicly available report on COVID in schools and early childhood education settings would be available on the NSW Health website "in the near future".

The spokesperson said that vaccination of eligible children remained an important step parents could take in the defence against COVID-19.

"The current arrangements for mask wearing in schools is in line with the current community settings. Should the broader community settings for indoor mask wearing change, we will continue to work closely with NSW Health to develop appropriate measures," the spokesperson said.

"We are assessing the RAT kit supply level, in the event that an additional drop to schools for surveillance testing may be appropriate.

"Every staff member and student in all NSW schools were provided rapid antigen test kits to participate in voluntary surveillance testing in early Term 1 2022. Since February 28, schools have been aligned with community settings of 'symptomatic testing' only and the department provided an allocation of tests to all staff and students to use as needed."

Dr Sarah Bayley, from the Raymond Terrace Family Practice, has warned the Port Stephens community to remain vigilant as the number of positive cases begin to increase.

"At our respiratory clinic we have seen an increase in the number of patients with respiratory symptoms in the past week. We are not testing between variants but assume we are seeing an increase due to the more infectious variant along with relaxation of rules such as mask requirements," Dr Bayley said.

"We continue to review patients face to face with respiratory symptoms and perform PCR testing Monday to Friday. We are also seeing positive patients who are unwell and need medical review."

Dr Bayley said that the clinic continued to offer Pfizer doses plus children's Pfizer and had recently added Novavax.

"Novavax at this stage is only for people who are not yet vaccinated or for those who cannot have other vaccines. We continue to have large dedicated clinics on a Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon with plenty of availability.

"We anticipate adding influenza vaccination to these clinics but not until late April or early May so that we can time vaccinations to give the greatest protection for winter.

"We are keen to promote that people wait for flu vaccinations so that they reach peak cover in the winter months."

A Hunter New England Health spokesperson said that over the past week there have been 212 PCR laboratory confirmed and 461 positive RATs reported to Service NSW for Port Stephens residents.

"All age-groups are affected but the highest rates are in children, and adolescents and young adults where three dose vaccine coverage is the lowest."

NSW Health encourages everyone who is eligible to receive a vaccination by booking through the COVID-19 vaccine clinic finder.

MedTech Services with 4Cyte Pathology continue to operate free drive-through COVID testing clinics across the Hunter, including at Anna Bay, Raymond Terrace, Singleton and East Maitland.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: