By 9.30am Friday morning, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District had risen to 57.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For the first time the ISLHD has broken down the figures further and it reveals a fairly even gender split - with 30 male and 27 female patients.
In terms of age - the highest number of cases is in the 70 to 79 aged group with 14 cases.
Ten patients are aged 60 to 69; nine are 50 to 59; eight are 40 to 49; five are 30 to 39 and three are aged 20 to 29.
Meantime seven patients are aged 80 and above - and there's one confirmed case who is aged under 20.
Of the cases, six patients are being cared for in Wollongong Hospital and one patient in Shoalhaven Hospital, while the rest are in home isolation.
"Anyone diagnosed with COVID-19 and their close contacts are either being treated in hospital or are in self-isolation to ensure there is no ongoing risk of infection to others in the community," ISLHD public health director Curtis Gregory said.
The region's public health unit is now contacting close contacts of the new cases, and asking them to self-isolate for 14 days from last contact.
They will be contacted every day to check that they are well and any contact who develops COVID-19 symptoms will be tested for the infection.
Mr Gregory reiterated that locations where these cases live, work or have visited do not pose any ongoing risk to the public.
So releasing private details, such as the location of individuals diagnosed with COVID-19, would be a breach of patient privacy, and would serve no public health benefit.
Meantime there's been a range of measures put in place across the district in the past fortnight, as the COVID-19 threat has intensified.
There's now dedicated COVID-19 assessment clinics at Wollongong, Shellharbour and Shoalhaven Hospitals, and this week strict rules were put on visitation - with no visitors to any COVID-19 ward or intensive care unit.
Wollongong Hospital's ICU has also been increased to 25 beds in a two-pod configuration. This has allowed for a dedicated COVID ICU and non-COVID ICU, to be completely isolated from each other.
ISLHD management said the hospital will have capacity to create a second ICU with additional capacity of up to 21 beds by the end of the month, should it be required.
Read more:
We have removed our paywall from our stories about the coronavirus. This is a rapidly changing situation and we aim to make sure our readers are as informed as possible. If you would like to support our journalists you can subscribe here.