South Australia records two deaths and 3707 new cases of Covid-19

South Australia has recorded two deaths and 3707 new cases of Covid-19 overnight, with 16 people in intensive care.

South Australia has recorded two deaths and 3707 new cases of Covid-19 overnight.

Premier Steven Marshall told reporters that one of the deaths was reported by some media on Thursday night.

“So two deaths in South Australia over the last 48 hours,” Mr Marshall said.

“Both of these people had underlying health issues – one person in their 60s, one person in their 90s.”

Mr Marshall said SA was doing better than most other states regarding the number of cases.

“It’s pleasing to see that we’re still in the 3000 range,” he said.

“We’re seeing some pretty big escalations right around the country.”

Premier Steven Marshall gave the Covid-19 update on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dean Martin

The Premier said there had been a “slight uptick” in hospitalisations, jumping to 144 people compared with 123 the previous day.

There are 16 patients in intensive care, with one person on a ventilator.

Chief health officer Nicola Spurrier said 80 per cent of people in intensive care were not fully vaccinated.

More than 20,000 tests were conducted on Thursday.

Meanwhile, genome sequencing showed 93 per cent of all people in hospital had the Omicron strain.

“So this is really very much becoming the dominant variant here in SA, like it is around the country,” Mr Marshall said.

People are urged to get tested. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Naomi Jellicoe

He also revealed there were now 356 health staff infected with the virus, which was another “uptick” but there had been a reduction in the number of close contacts to 547.

“A lot of these people are continuing to work, but they’re working from home,” he said.

“In fact, we’re encouraging all people right across the state to be working from home if this is at all possible.

“We are still extraordinarily concerned about Omicron and we want to slow the spread down.”

Dr Spurrier said authorities were trying to keep the number of cases as low as possible.

“We’re definitely not at our peak now ... the Premier has already flagged that we’re expecting a peak towards the end of January,” she said.

“There will be a group of people, as the numbers go up, that we don’t actually pick up.”

Mr Marshall reiterated his preference to get children in school for face-to-face learning but said no decision had been made yet.

“There’s still more data to collect and still more information to collect,” he said.

“We will reach our conclusion by the end of next week but there is still lots of moving parts.”