Australia's New South Wales has recorded 1,164 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and three new deaths.
State Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the cases in a press conference on Tuesday morning (local time).
The new deaths include a woman in her 50s from south west Sydney, a man in his 80s from the city of Sydney and a man in his 90s from south west Sydney.
Michelle Dowd, the nurse manager at the Intensive Care Services at South Western Sydney Local Health District, said the particularly contagious Delta variant is concerning.
"The Delta variant is so contagious that we have entire family groups in our hospital in some really tragic circumstances," she said, according to The Guardian.
"We've had parents, both parents of young children so sick that they need to be ventilated in our intensive care unit and separated from their children.
"Sometimes they don't have extended family to look after these children, or the extended family is so sick that we need to make alternative care arrangements.
"This virus is literally ripping families apart. Many of our parents with COVID are young. They're normally fit and healthy. They come from a variety of backgrounds but the one thing that they have in common is they are usually not vaccinated."
There are currently 871 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital in NSW, including 143 people in intensive care, 58 of whom require ventilation.
Berejiklian says she expects hospital admissions to peak in October.
She also noted Tuesday is the last day of winter.
"I can safely say that we're looking forward to a better spring than we did winter. I'm pleased to report, however, that 67 percent of our adult population officially ticked over yesterday [and] have received their first dose of vaccine so it's pleasing to know that we were officially 66-point-something percent yesterday and 67 percent is now vaccinated."
Berejiklian said she hopes NSW can get 70 to 80 percent of the population vaccinated as soon as possible.
"Can I please encourage everybody who has not yet made plans for vaccination to really consider September the month when them and their loved ones, your loved ones and your family are vaccinated. It's so critical for all of us to have a more hopeful spring by making sure we get those vaccination rates up."
There have now been 21,208 locally acquired cases reported in NSW since the outbreak began on June 16.
There have also been 96 COVID-19 related deaths, and 152 in total since the start of the pandemic.
