According to SA Health’s daily update, the number of hospitalisations remained at 245 today, with 11 people in intensive care, including two people on ventilators.
There are currently 29,079 active cases in South Australia.
SA Health said of those hospitalised, 163 people were fully xjmtzywvaccinated, 76 people were either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, and six had an unknown vaccination status.
Today’s 3829 new infections is a rise on yesterday’s 3560 cases, which was a jump from 2675 the day before, although it’s well below the recent high of more than 6000 daily cases.
SA Health reported that yesterday 10,350 people received a PCR test in South Australia, a 10.4 per cent increase on the previous 24 hours.
Of the test results returned yesterday, 2302 PCR tests were positive, while 1,527 positive rapid antigen test results were reported.
The impact of lifting mask restrictions on Good Friday is expected to be known in coming days.
SA Health’s online COVID dashboard said there were 261 patients in hospital yesterday, including 13 in ICU, but an SA Health spokesperson told the figures were wrong and said the mistake was due to a “manual error” in the entering of data.
The spokesperson said the number of 245 people in hospital reported by SA Health in its daily press release yesterday was the correct figure.
Health Minister Chris Picton this morning said the rate of hospitalisations had been “a concern for a number of months”.
“We know that hospitalisations tend to lag… behind the infections because obviously people take some time to get to the point of requiring hospitalisation,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
“That is putting pressure on the system for sure, that’s why we’ve been doing a lot of work to try to open additional beds to decant some of our most acute beds in hospitals to be able to manage people who have COVID who need that severe acute assistance from the health system.”
Picton said yesterday’s figure of 245 people in hospital was below projections because it included people in hospital with COVID but not specifically for the disease.
“The number of people who are in there specifically for COVID we’ll be getting an update of that this morning but I understand that’s still under where the original modelling put us but that’s still putting additional pressure on the system and we are working hard to make sure that we open every additional bed at the moment,” he said.
