Second suspected Omicron case among seven new ACT COVID-19 infections

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the government was closely monitoring the new variant, but wasn't considering reimposing social restrictions at this stage as it continued to plan for as "COVID normal Christmas as possible".

The seven new cases bring the active total for the ACT to 119. Six people are in hospital, including three in intensive care.

Ms Stephen-Smith said one of the new cases reported on Saturday was a close contact of the ACT's first confirmed Omicron case, meaning it was "likely" they too were infected with the new strain.

She said genomic sequencing would confirm if that was the case, although the results might not be known until early next week because the individual required a second test due to their low viral load.

Canberra's first case of Omicron was reported to the public late on Friday afternoon. ACT Health now believe the first case, who had not travelled overseas, was linked to an exposure in NSW.

The ACT has moved quickly to impose 14-day quarantine requirements for close contacts of Omicron cases, as well as their household contacts - regardless of the individuals' vaccination status.

There are 20 close contacts associated with the confirmed Omicron case. A further 33 returned travellers have also been deemed close contacts, having returned to Australia on the same flight as someone infected with the new variant.

The South Australian government on Saturday announced new testing requirements on arrivals from the ACT, NSW and Victoria, with premier Steven Marshall saying he was "extraordinarily concerned" with a emergence of a variant he described as a "game changer".

Mr Marshall has not ruled out shutting the border to the three jurisdictions if the situation worsens.

Asked on Saturday about her view of the new strain, Ms Stephen-Smith said not enough was known about the variant - including its transmissibility and response to vaccines - to make firm judgements.

She said the government wasn't considering reimposing restrictions. The first measure to return would be indoor mask wearing, she said.

"I think that [indoor mask wearing] is the one sort of thing that we can do very easily that's not going to significantly impact on people's capacity to move towards as COVID normal a Christmas and New Year as we can possibly have," she said.

"That really is the objective of our health authorities at this time, to enable people to have as normal life as possible over this Christmas New Year and the summer period."

There were 1334 negative tests received in the 24 hours to 9am on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the percentage of the eligible population who are now fully vaccinated has reached 97.9 per cent as of Friday, December 3.

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NSW reported another 325 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, and one death, 12 fewer than the number reported on Friday, which was the highest tally in six weeks.

There have been a total of 11 Omicron cases confirmed with genomic testing in NSW since the first two cases were reported on Sunday, but only six of them are linked to the eight countries of concern.

Meanwhile, Victoria added 1365 infections to its COVID-19 caseload and recorded a further nine virus-related deaths.

The state continues to manage almost 14,400 active coronavirus cases. There are 288 virus patients in Victorian hospitals, 44 of them in intensive care and 20 requiring ventilation.

Health authorities said virus testers managed to process 67,545 results in the reporting period.

With AAP

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