Two Shellharbour women and a man from Wollongong have died with COVID-19, NSW Health has reported.
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Their deaths were among 14 COVID-related deaths that were recorded in the 24 hours to 4pm Sunday.
The women from Shellharbour were aged in their 80s and 90s, while the Wollongong man was in his 80s.
Their deaths follow that of a Shoalhaven resident, a woman in her 90s, whose passing was reported at the weekend.
All four people were vaccinated.
There were 407 new COVID-19 cases detected in the Illawarra Shoalhaven in the last 24-hour reporting period: 197 from PCR tests and 210 from rapid antigen tests.
These include 226 infections from Wollongong, 78 from Shellharbour, 14 from Kiama, and 89 from Shoalhaven.
It has been less than three weeks since the local health district hit a record high for new cases during the pandemic, with 2288 new infections reported on January 19.
The number of new cases recorded in NSW remained under 10,000 for the third consecutive day, with 7437 reported in the 24 hours to 4pm Sunday.
There are 2099 people in hospital with COVID in NSW, although updated figures on local hospitalisations are not available.
There are 137 people in intensive care, with 60 on ventilators.
Meanwhile, almost 44 per cent of people aged 16 and over have had a booster dose of the COVID vaccine.
The NSW government has launched a new campaign, titled Let's Do This, to encourage people to have this third shot.
Kiama MP Gareth Ward has welcomed the campaign, saying that ensuring everyone gets their booster is key to strengthening protection against the virus.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard also urged people to get their vaccine booster shot.
"We know that you are far less likely to end up with serious illness, far less likely to have it transmitted to you or to transmit to someone else, far less likely to end up in ICU, far less likely to die," Mr Hazzard said.
"So I would encourage each of us to be ambassadors for the goal of getting everybody boosted.
"Please go out and tell your family and tell your friends to get boosted, it will keep us all that much safer."
The proportion of children aged 12 to 15 who have had their second dose has crept up to 78.7 per cent, while 43.1 per cent of children aged five to 11 have had their first shot.
Non-urgent elective surgeries requiring an overnight stay have resumed in private hospitals and rural and regional hospitals, after being put on hold on January 10 as a result of the surge in COVID cases.
While Wollongong Private Hospital is among those reintroducing these surgeries, the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District is not, citing the ongoing pressure on hospitals as a result of patients with COVID.
Premier Dominic Perrottet said on Monday he hoped to have non-urgent surgery resume across the state as soon as possible.
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