The doctor in charge of the Hunter's medical response to COVID-19 says fewer than 10 children have been hospitalised with the disease during the latest outbreak and none have become seriously ill.
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A flurry of primary school closures in the Hunter this week has accompanied the return of face-to-face learning, and Hunter New England Health has had the highest case load of any NSW health district in recent days.
Cases spiked to more than 100 a day in the HNEH district in the first half of the month and have oscillated between 49 and 83 this week.
The health district has recorded 1740 cases in the past four weeks, second only to South Western Sydney on 2112 in NSW.
But HNEH hospitals are now treating just 17 COVID-19 patients, the lowest tally since October 1, as vaccination rates climb.
HNEH medical controller Dr Paul Craven said many of the new infections were in unvaccinated children and their parents, but hospitalisations had not increased.
"We've had less than 10 children admitted to hospital overall, so that is a small number," he said.
"And those children have had either very mild symptoms or maybe even some of those children have been admitted because their parents are sick and they need somewhere to be kept safe."
He said no children had been sick enough to enter intensive care in the Hunter since the latest outbreak began in early August.
"What we're seeing now is a number of younger people getting it, obviously the unvaccinated children, and that's probably what we were expecting to see.
"The good thing about children getting COVID is most of the children don't get sick.
"We're seeing two spikes. One is obviously that childhood age, but also their parents then get positive as well.
"Vaccination is obviously protecting them from getting unwell and getting into hospital, so we're not seeing increasing numbers flowing into the hospital at the moment, which is great news."
HNEH reported 54 new cases on Friday, including 15 in Newcastle local government area, 10 in MidCoast, seven in Lake Macquarie, six in Cessnock and Tamworth, four in Port Stephens, three in Maitland, two in Singleton and one in Armidale.
The Hunter's adult double-dose vaccination rate had soared past 83 per cent in the latest figures last weekend.
The single-dose rate was above 95 per cent.
But, as of Tuesday, the region's indigenous population remained relatively unprotected with a double-dose rate of 71 per cent.
The first-dose rate for Aboriginal people was 84.5 per cent, less than two percentage points higher than a week earlier.
Dr Craven said the Hunter's testing rates remained "very low".
"If we're not testing, we're not going to find the true COVID cases, and therefore those cases will be family members whose kids get infected and go to school then expose lots of children in that facility."
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