Peter Gutwein,Premier
Tasmania continues to experience a significant wave of COVID cases, which we expect will peak in a matter of weeks before case numbers start to come back down.
We do expect cases to continue to grow in the coming days, but thanks to our high vaccination rates, it means the majority will experience relatively mild symptoms.
There are now 4,681 active cases in Tasmania, but of those, only eight are in hospital, and of those, only three are there due to COVID-19 itself, thanks to our high vaccination rates.
Things will get better and it is important we continue to take sensible steps to relieve pressure points on testing.
From 7pm last night, Tasmania moved to Rapid Antigen Tests as a diagnostic tool to detect cases.
For people with symptoms or those who are close contacts, these tests will be available for free just as the PCR tests have been.
If you are in a rural or regional area and you are symptomatic or a close contact of a case, please contact the Public Health Hotline on 1800 671 738 to arrange to collect a RAT or to book to undertake a PCR test at a Testing Clinic.
To be clear, if you are neither symptomatic nor a close contact, you do not need to take a test.
And, our PCR tests, which are able to process up to 5,000 tests per day, will continue to be available to help provide testing capacity where it is needed and in priority settings, such as healthcare.
Yesterday, we distributed nearly 10,000 RAT tests in the South alone, and we have five million RATs on order, with batches coming into the state regularly.
If you test positive on a RAT, whether one supplied by public health or if you use one that you have at home, you must notify Public Health by registering the result via the coronavirus website, which is the preferred method, or if you can’t access the website, by calling the public health hotline.
