New South Wales has recorded its highest daily increase in both new COVID cases and virus-related deaths.
There were 1431 new local cases and 12 virus-related deaths in the 24 hours to 8pm on Thursday.
Of the 12 deaths, one was a woman in her 30s, one was a woman in her 60s, four men and three women in their 70s, a man and a woman in their 80s and a man in his 90s.
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The youngest of the victims tested positive on August 31 and died at home a day later.
There are currently 979 COVID patients requiring treatment in hospital.
Of those, 160 are in intensive care and 63 require ventilation.
There have been 119 COVID-related deaths throughout the current outbreak and 175 in total.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, however, warns that cases are likely to peak in the coming weeks.
“The best health advice I have is that we anticipate a peak in cases in the next fortnight,” she said.
“The next fortnight is likely to be our worst in terms of the number of cases, but as I have said it is not the number of cases we need to be focusing on but how many of those cases are up in our intensive care wards and hospitals.”
Berejiklian has previously said that modelling showed October would be the worse month in the pandemic for ICU admissions.
She added that she was in conversation with the federal government about receiving more doses of vaccine.
“Any additional supply will be welcome, and I know the prime minister - and I speak to him regularly on this issue - is working day and night to get more vaccines to Australians and obviously New South Wales will receive our share of those vaccines,” Berejiklian said.
More than 7.2 million doses of a vaccine have been administered statewide.
There were 154,000 tests reported to 8pm on Thursday.