As the number of new COVID cases in Hunter New England climbed to 3,410 in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, two more people from the region lost their lives to the virus - a man in his 80s from the Port Stephens area, and a man in his 50s from Lake Macquarie.

It brings the total number of COVID deaths in the Lower Hunter to 15 since December 29. Of those, four were residents of aged care facilities.

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Dominic Perrottet said mandatory reporting of positive rapid antigen tests - RATs - via the ServiceNSW app would be enforced from January 19. The state's daily case numbers - which reached 34,759 on Wednesday - would begin to include both PCR and RAT results by the end of the week.

"The registration of that test is mandatory," the Premier said. "There are areas right across the state where there are laws that are harder to enforce than others, and clearly, this is one that will be harder to enforce, there is no doubt. But we want people to upload their positive test, particularly those who have underlying health conditions, and particularly those who may be pregnant - because that information needs to be passed on to NSW Health."

The Premier said while there was a "clear" shortage of RATs currently available, the government had ordered another 50 million of them, and PCR testing sites would continue to operate across the state. He was adamant that NSW school students would return to classrooms on "day one, term one".

"There may be bumps along the way," he said. "But we are going back to school on day one. I am passionately committed to doing it. I completely disagree with the doctors' union in relation to this... We need kids back. We need them back on day one. That's what we're going to do."

NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said that while the new testing system was confusing and "messy" - given RATs were typically less sensitive than PCR tests, ultimately it was important that household contacts, close contacts and symptomatic people used whatever test was first available to them to avoid missing out on beneficial therapies should they need them.

Dr Chant said about 90 per cent of COVID cases in NSW are the Omicron variant.

More than 50 per cent of the 175 people in ICU across NSW are not vaccinated. Of the 27,168 confirmed active cases in the Hunter New England district, 101 are receiving care in hospital, and 10 are in intensive care.

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