Australia has recorded another 38 COVID-19-related deaths as NSW and Victoria prepare to scrap a range of COVID-19 restrictions, including the requirement for household contacts of people with the virus to isolate.
NSW recorded 15 deaths, with 14 in Victoria, six in Queensland, two in South Australia and one in the Northern Territory on Wednesday.
A further 15,414 new were reported in NSW, while 10,628 fresh infections were recorded in Victoria.
Queensland recorded 8,995 new COVID-19 cases, there were 4,256 in South Australia, 1,819 in Tasmania, and 594 in the Northern Territory.
There are 1,639 people with the virus in NSW hospitals, including 72 in intensive care units (ICU). There are 437 patients in Victorian hospitals with COVID-19, including 34 in ICU.
In Queensland, 594 people are hospitalised with the virus, including 25 in ICU; some 252 patients with COVID-19 are in South Australian Hospitals, including 14 in ICU; there are 59 patients in Tasmanian hospitals, including two in ICU, and 44 people hospitalised in the Northern Territory have COVID-19, including two in ICU.
The figures come as Victoria and NSW will take major restriction-easing steps on Friday.
Victoria's Health Minister Martin Foley said a raft of restrictions will ease from 11.59pm on Friday, after the state passed the peak of its second Omicron wave.
"That's why we're in the position of being able to take some important steps over the coming days," he told reporters.
Close contacts of confirmed cases will no longer have to quarantine provided they wear a mask indoors and avoid sensitive settings. They must also return five negative rapid antigen tests over the seven-day period.
Positive cases still need to self-isolate for the full seven-day period in Victoria and masks will remain mandatory on public transport, in airports and health, aged care and justice settings.
Victorians will no longer be required to have two vaccine doses or show their vaccination status before entering pubs, restaurants, movie theatres and sports venues.
Primary school students will no longer have to wear masks, and they will also not be required in retail and hospitality settings.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said the requirement for close contacts of COVID-19 cases to isolate for seven days will end at 6pm on Friday.
Close contacts will have to undertake daily rapid antigen tests, wear masks indoors and work from home where possible.
They will also have to notify their employers and avoid high-risk environments like hospitals and aged care settings.
NSW will move towards removing hotel quarantine and ditch the green dots indicating where to sit on public transport.
However, masks will still be required on public transport.
Although it was not the end of the pandemic, "it is a great day for our state", Mr Perrottet said.
"It is also a day to reflect on what we have come through ... let's just focus on success for a moment," he said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the changes reflect the fact that Australia "has come through this pandemic strongly".
"I welcome the fact that in NSW and Victoria they are getting back to normal — hallelujah," he said on Wednesday.
"We have been waiting a long time for these sorts of things and the rest of the states I'm sure will continue down that path."
Business leaders have been calling for the end to the seven-day isolation rule, saying it will ease staff shortages for businesses trying to recover from the pandemic.
Clinical epidemiologist and head of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Nancy Baxter says a quarter-to-half of people who have a household contact with COVID-19, will likely contract the virus.
"We need to protect people from those households contacts if we're allowing them to leave home without isolation," she told ABC TV on Wednesday.
"You'd want them to do RATs, you'd want them in masks and not just in any mask, in a high-quality mask like a P2 or N95."
Employers should be required to keep those people isolated or physically distanced from other workers "because there's going to be a high-risk of getting it into the workplace for these people", she said.
"It is (politically) expedient for all of these things to be relaxed because it signals that COVID is over.
"The problem is COVID hasn't gotten the memo .... and what we're seeing in Australia right now is ... one of the world's highest rate of new cases of COVID per day."
