Dr Chant not drawn on comparing to city outbreak, as Albury tops state

With 616 cases across the twin cities' population of 89,000, the outbreak has been compared to one in Sydney with 3000 daily cases.

Albury now has the most active cases in NSW.

Dr Chant said young cohorts were a significant driver of the outbreak.

"I've got absolute confidence the suite of measures works, and I've got absolute confidence in the community," she said.

"We are moving into an endemic phase of COVID, so we again need that proportionality.

"Why we are trying to particularly suppress the cases and get the case numbers down low is that we know there are still unvaccinated pockets, and we just want to minimise harms.

"But once we get a highly vaccinated, uniformly vaccinated population, even if we had similar case numbers, we wouldn't be as worried because we would have less vulnerable people left."

Albury MP Justin Clancy said he was glad to have Dr Chant on the Border after she offered to meet with the local community.

"It's important ... for our community to know that its concerns are being heard at the highest level," he said.

There were 46 new cases in Albury and a third death was recorded at Mercy Place, a man in his 70s, Murrumbidgee Local Health District chief executive Jill Ludford said.

"He had received one dose of the COVID vaccination and I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family and friends and to the community," she said.

"It's really important that Murrumbidgee Local Health District and my team work alongside Albury Wodonga Health, who are the healthcare providers for these communities.

"We are partnering together in the public health response.

"It's clear when you have a look at the breakdown of the cases that the majority of the cases in this region are young people under the age of 18.

"Therefore our strategies in both of the communities needs to be about vaccinating children who are eligible over the age of 12.

"The other vulnerable groups obviously are aged care facilities and we're seeing at the moment an outbreak in two aged care facilities in Albury."

MLHD has cited privacy reasons in not disclosing which aged care facility has become the second to be impacted in the outbreak.

Albury Wodonga Health chief executive Michael Kalimnios said there were 52 new cases on the North East Victorian side; 45 in Wodonga, six in Wangaratta and one in Indigo.

IN OTHER NEWS:

"We now have 371 active cases in our North East Victoria catchment.

"In terms of the impact on the health service itself, we're currently managing 580 COVID patients in the community across the NSW and Victorian catchments."

The number of people hospitalised grew to seven earlier this week, but one of those people is now in Albury's intensive care unit.

Active cases are now: