That's the message from Western NSW Local Health District's acting CEO Mark Spittal, who says those more compelling figures include the number of patients in the health district's hospitals who have COVID.

He says "upward of 40 people in hospital may not seem like a lot", but it would be enough, all together, to fill almost a third of Bathurst Base.

The Western NSW Local Health District reached a peak of 41 COVID cases across its hospitals at the start of last week, which dropped to 39 and then 31 in the subsequent days before starting to climb again.

Mr Spittal says the number of people "that we know have COVID-19 should not be the measure people use to assess the risk" they face.

"Far more compelling numbers that maybe get less attention are the number of people across the District who are getting booster shots, the children being vaccinated and the number of people who are in hospital who have COVID-19," he said.

"In recent weeks, we have seen upward of 40 people in hospital with COVID-19 on any given day but that number has not increased at anywhere near the same rate as known case numbers in Western NSW. That shows vaccination is working.

"Yes, there are people in hospital who are vaccinated, but the sheer number of people with COVID-19 in the community means that is no surprise.

"When you look at the most seriously unwell people across NSW, and adjust for those people who are in ICU for reasons other than COVID-19 alone, it becomes starkly clear that it is unvaccinated people who end up in ICU solely due to COVID."

Compared to the number of cases across the health district, he said, upward of 40 people in hospital may not seem like a lot, but, all together, "it is still enough to fill the inpatient beds in two or three of our Multipurpose Services, or almost a third of Bathurst Base Hospital".

Regardless of whether those patients had come to hospital because of COVID-19 or for another reason but also have COVID-19, he said the amount of extra work "that goes into caring for someone with COVID-19 is still there and it impacts our other services".

"Those patients need to be kept as separate as possible from everyone else in hospital. Our nurses and other hospital workers have to go through a totally separate routine to protect themselves, there's extra cleaning and more PPE required such as masks and gowns.

"Most significantly, much-needed elective surgery is being delayed."

He said everyone needs to be behaving in a COVID-safe way "all the time now".

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