Two more people in Dubbo have died from COVID-19 including an Aboriginal man in his 40s who had underlying health conditions, bringing the region's death toll to 11.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The second person was a man in his 70s who was in palliative care at Dubbo Hospital. Neither man was vaccinated.
It comes as cases in Dubbo remain low and the focus for local health authorities turns to Wellington, which had the majority of yesterday's case numbers and saw health services conducting door-to-door testing at Nanima Village.
Up to 8pm Monday there were 21 additional cases in the region, 11 were in Wellington and only one was in Dubbo.
ALSO READ:
"We've pleasingly seen a decline in the number of cases in Dubbo, over the past week there hasn't been a day above five cases so there's some pleasing signs there...that things have eased," Western NSW LHD Chief Executive Scott McLachlan said.
"We've had a lot of support come into Wellington in the last 48 hours to provide further testing and in-home support. Specifically we've paid a lot of attention to Nanima Village just outside of Wellington where we've done door-to-door testing...those test results will be coming back in the next 24 hours."
Of the 11 additional cases, eight were in isolation while one was known to be infectious in the community, and two are under investigation.
About 60 per cent of positive COVID cases across the entire Western LHD are Aboriginal people, but Mr McLachlan said vaccination uptake has been improving, with a "much more significant increase within the Aboriginal community than there has been for the non-Aboriginal community across the region" in the past two weeks.
The Western LHD now has an 88.7 per cent first dose vaccination rate and 60 per cent are fully dosed. The LHD health workforce is believed to have the highest health vaccination rate in the state.
In other positive news, the NSW Government on Tuesday gave the green light for breast screening services to resume.
"We're in the final stages of planning to make sure those services will be safe...and to make sure that we can prioritise some of the women that, unfortunately have not been able to make their appointments over the last 6 to 8 weeks," Mr McLachlan said. "We'll be back in coming days with some updates on how, when and where they'll be restarting."
Our COVID-19 news articles relating to public health and safety are free for anyone to access. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support.
