By Ebi Kesiena
Following a Government mandate to log positive Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs), the Australian State of New South Wales (NSW) recorded a vast record of 92,264 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday.
Of the new cases, 30,877 were done through traditional PCR testing and a further 61,387 were self-reported by citizens since the government opened the self-reporting system recently.
The surge in cases, whom many described as “out of control” has been largely attributed to the Omicron variant, which has quickly outpaced PCR testing capacity across the country.
Thursday’s cases included a backlog of positive RATs from January 1. The avalanche of cases comes as the NSW government announced that self-reporting would be made mandatory and failure to do so would incur a 1,000 Australian dollars ($700) fine.
The state also saw its deadliest day of the pandemic, reporting a further 22 deaths on Thursday. In the same period, 2,383 people are in hospital with the virus, 182 of which require intensive care.
