Another 94 COVID-19 cases have emerged in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven, with the NSW government again highlighting the district's growing number of infections.
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Wollongong residents accounted for 66 of the new cases detected in the 24 hours to Tuesday night.
Sixteen Shelharbour residents also tested positive for COVID, as did nine in Shoalhaven and three in Kiama.
Sixty-one of these cases remain under investigation, while 33 are linked to other known cases.
"We see the increasing cases in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven, particularly about that Wollongong and Shellharbour area," chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said.
The Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District has had the vast majority of its COVID cases in the past three months of this outbreak, with 1365 recorded since June 16.
"I think that emphasises that they need to be very cautious through the Illawarra Shoalhaven," Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.
Since the beginning of the pandemic 1438 residents of the district have acquired COVID, with 128 of these contracting the virus overseas.
There are now 630 active cases across the Illawarra, with 475 in Wollongong, 141 in Shellharbour, and 14 in Kiama.
There were 863 new locally acquired COVID cases reported in NSW to 8pm Tuesday, plus the deaths of another 15 people who had the illness - the largest number of COVID-related deaths in one day since the pandemic began.
Nine of these people were unvaccinated, five had received one dose, and one person was fully vaccinated.
They were aged from their 40s to their 90s.
There are 1082 people in hospital with COVID, 35 of whom are being treated at Wollongong Hospital.
Intensive care units are treating 212 COVID patients, with 108 people on ventilators.
"Interestingly our hospitalisation rate and ICU rate is doing OK compared to our modelling, so we're still just tracking under what we envisaged we would, but there's certainly no time for complacency," Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
She said residents needed to exercise an "extra degree of caution" between October 11, when the entire state would begin opening up, and the point at which 80 per cent of residents were fully vaccinated, "to make sure we don't see a surge in cases or a surge in hospitalisations beyond what we can manage".
The premier announced a new freedom that will come into force on Monday, October 11: aged care residents will be allowed to receive two aged care visitors each day, if the visitors are aged 12 or over and fully vaccinated.
Just over 86 per cent of people aged 16 and over in NSW have received one dose of the COVID vaccine, while 61.7 per cent have had two.
Among 12 to 15-year-olds, the first dose rate sits at 44.5 per cent.
"I would like to urge everyone to get vaccinated at this time, so if you are still unvaccinated... there is increasing supplies of Moderna at pharmacies, and GPs have strong supplies of Pfizer," Dr Chant said.
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