The NSW health system is facing staff shortages, the peak medical association has warned as COVID-19 hospitalisations passed 1000.
As of Sunday, 1066 people were in hospital with the coronavirus including 83 in intensive care, 24 of whom require ventilation.
Australian Medical Association vice president Chris Moy said the system was "struggling" with staff shortages as case numbers rise and health workers fall sick, test positive or are identified as close contacts.
"People look at the numbers and see the 1066 in hospitals but the health system doesn't just look after COVID and people are having critical surgery delayed," he told AAP.
At the peak of the Delta outbreak on September 21, there were 1266 people hospitalised with infections, and 244 in intensive care.
A NSW Health spokesperson said as of December 30, 2510 healthcare workers were in isolation after being exposed to COVID-19.
Exemptions may be given in exceptional circumstances for healthcare employees who are deemed critical and who cannot work from home but only if they are asymptomatic, the spokesperson says.
Dr Moy said NSW Health's policy change showed the "desperation" to fill up rosters.
Not all of the 1066 people in hospital with coronavirus were admitted for treatment for COVID-19, new research has revealed.
Some patients in hospital with COVID-19 were admitted for unrelated illness or injury, a small sampling of patients in two local health districts taken by NSW Health over the past two weeks shows.
Among the people being counted as COVID-19 hospitalisations are women in labour, people seeking mental health support and care, and people with appendicitis or bowel obstruction, NSW Health said in a statement.
The agency did not respond to questions about whether a similar proportion of hospitalisations during the Delta wave were primarily for other reasons.
"It is to be expected that as COVID-19 cases in the community increase some patients will present with conditions other than COVID-19 as their primary reasons for seeking health care," a NSW Health spokesperson said in a statement.
NSW recorded two more deaths and 18,278 new infections on Sunday.
Testing numbers to 8pm on New Year's Day were down to 90,019, a drop from 119,278 on New Year's Eve.
Some 93.6 per cent of adult NSW residents have now had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, while the 12-to-15-year-old age bracket has moved to 78.2 per cent having received two doses.
Almost 14,000 of the cases reported on Sunday were in Sydney while 1342 were in the Hunter New England local health district, 780 in the Nepean Blue Mountains and 414 in the Central Coast districts.
There were hundreds of cases in the Illawarra Shoalhaven and Northern NSW health districts as well as on the Mid North Coast.
© AAP 2022