The Hunter is on track to have vaccination rates higher than the NSW average, even though parts of the region lagged well behind when the state started opening up on Monday.
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Six of the Hunter's nine local government areas had above-average single-dose vaccination rates on Sunday night, led by Lake Macquarie and Upper Hunter on 95 per cent.
The NSW average on Sunday was 90.4 per cent and rose again to 90.77 per cent on Monday.
Port Stephens (94.9 per cent), Maitland (93.7), Singleton (92.7) and Dungog (92.7) also were in front of the state figure.
Newcastle (89 per cent), Cessnock (89.1) and Muswellbrook (88.1) were only slightly off the pace.
The numbers suggest the region's population stampeded to get jabbed when the supply of Pfizer finally improved last month and will eventually have relatively high rates of full vaccination.
For now, the region's double-dose rates remain low.
Only Upper Hunter (76.7 per cent) was above the state average of 73.4 per cent for double-dose vaccination on Sunday night, and Port Stephens (70 per cent) was the only other Hunter LGA to have reached the 70 per cent milestone to start easing restrictions.
Muswellbrook (56.5 per cent) remained about three weeks away from achieving 70 per cent, and Cessnock (58.4) and Singleton (60.7) were about two weeks behind.
The state double-dose rate climbed 1.8 percentage points to 75.23 per cent on Monday and, at that rate, will reach 80 per cent on Friday.
This would trigger the second stage of eased restrictions, including the opening up of regional travel to and from Sydney.
The Hunter health district recorded 47 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, down from almost 100 a day at the end of last week.
Hunter New England Health public health controller Dr David Durrheim said the fall in positive tests was "encouraging" but expected them to "oscillate" over the next few days.
The new cases included 13 in Maitland local government area, 11 in Lake Macquarie, nine in Cessnock, six in Newcastle, three in Port Stephens, three in Taree and two in Tamworth.
The new positive tests included seven in Weston and six in Woodberry.
Eighteen of the cases were infectious in the community and 13 were not linked to previous known cases.
Twenty-three of the 1102 active cases are being treated in hospital, including four in intensive care.
Dr Durrheim said vaccinated people should feel "empowered" to ask family and friends if they had been vaccinated.
"We don't want to mix with people at this stage who are unprotected," he said.
"Similarly, the power's in our hands, as people who want to go and have a meal at a restaurant, visit a pub, go and visit a gym, to again ask the proprietors, have all of your staff been double vaccinated, are you checking the vaccination status of everybody who's coming to pay a visit."
HNEH listed the Warners Bay Subway in Macquarie Road as a new exposure site on Tuesday last week from 9am to 2pm.
Anyone who visited the store at this time must get tested and isolate until receiving a negative result.
NSW recorded 360 new cases, the lowest tally since August 13, and five deaths in the 24 hours to 8pm Monday.
The positive test rate in NSW has fallen from a high of 1.29 per cent, or 1.29 positives per 100 tests, in early September to just 0.4 per cent on Monday, the lowest since August 23.
NSW hospitals are treating 766 people for COVID-19, down from a peak of 1253 a month ago.
The hospital patients include 155 in intensive care, down from 242 on September 22.
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