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NSW has recorded another 22,577 COVID cases and four deaths as the state's largest outbreak continues to surge.

It is another daily case record, surpassing Friday's 21,151.

Four deaths were recorded, while 901 people are hospitalised and 79 are in intensive care.

NSW closed the year recording more infections in one week than it did throughout Delta-induced lockdowns.

That outbreak began with an infected limousine driver on June 16, leading to lockdowns that eventually covered the whole state and ended as restrictions began easing for fully vaccinated residents on October 11.

During that period the state recorded 63,338 cases.

In the final week of 2021, with the more transmissible Omicron variant rampant, pathology labs pushed to their limit and most restrictions ended, the state recorded 75,258 cases, including 21,151 on December 31, when it also recorded six deaths.

Some of the differences between the two outbreaks include the new variant, 93.5 per cent of the state having received two doses of a vaccine, and a new premier in charge of the government's response.

With vaccination rates high, Premier Dominic Perrottet has focused attention on the number of people in hospital and intensive care units, rather than the number of daily cases.

On the final day of 2021 there were 832 people with the virus in hospital, 69 of them in intensive care.

During the Delta peak, on September 21, there were 1266 hospitalised infections and 244 people in intensive care.

Despite comprising about six per cent of the population, unvaccinated people make up the majority of those in intensive care, Health Minister Brad Hazzard says.

To ensure hospital systems can cope, asymptomatic health workers who are in isolation due to being a close contact of a positive case will be permitted to leave isolation in "exceptional circumstances", NSW Health announced on Friday night.

The exemption to the public health order signed off by Mr Hazzard means close contacts can leave self-isolation to attend work if they have been identified by their employer as critical and cannot work from home.

The exemption only allows them to go from home to work and if they develop symptoms they have to get a PCR test and can't return to work until they test negative.

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant warned earlier in the week there were likely more cases than health authorities knew about as testing systems faced backlogs caused by a huge demand for tests in the lead-up to Christmas.

National cabinet has changed isolation requirements for positive cases and close contacts and rapid antigen testing is taking the place of PCR tests in most circumstances.

Mr Perrottet says NSW will face short term challenges while waiting for 50 million rapid antigen tests the state has ordered, expected to arrive later in the month.

"We are continually looking at whether we need to purchase more," Mr Perrottet said on Friday.

The new cases were from 148,410 PCR tests and results have been delayed as demand has spiked.

The surge in cases to end the year has prompted some criticism of the Perrottet government that remained largely resistant to reintroducing restrictions, placing an onus on "personal responsibility".

Opposition Leader Chris Minns said the government's plan had been "chaotic and confusing" and the state was unprepared for millions of people to live with the virus.

"You've got a situation where pregnant women are waiting five and six hours to get PCR tests and it's clear the government was not prepared for the large increase in numbers over the last six or seven days," Mr Minns said on Friday.

© AAP 2022

NSW has recorded another 22,577 COVID cases and four deaths as the state's huge outbreak continues to surge.

It is another daily case record, surpassing Friday's 21,151.

Four deaths were recorded, while 901 people are hospitalised and 79 are in intensive care.

The deaths were three women and one man; one was in their 60s, one in their 70s and two in their 80s. Two of them had received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

One woman, in her 80s, was a resident of North Parramatta's Lilian Wells Nursing Home, the second death linked to an outbreak at that facility.

There are 901 people in hospital with COVID, 79 of which are in intensive care and 26 on ventilators.

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.

Testing numbers to 8pm on New Year's Eve were down to 119,278, from 148,410 a day prior.

The rising case numbers come as Premier Dominic Perrottet continues to focus on hospitalisation and intensive care numbers rather than the daily case total.

At the peak of the Delta outbreak, on September 21, there were 1266 people hospitalised with infections, and 244 in intensive care.

Despite comprising about six per cent of the population, unvaccinated people make up the majority of those in intensive care, Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.

To ensure hospital systems can cope, asymptomatic health workers who are in isolation due to being a close contact of a positive case will be permitted to leave isolation in "exceptional circumstances", NSW Health announced on Friday night.

The exemption to the public health order, signed off by Mr Hazzard, means close contacts can leave self-isolation to attend work if they have been identified by their employer as critical and unable to work from home.

The exemption allows them to travel from home to work, and if they develop symptoms they have to get a PCR test and cannot return to work until they test negative.

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant warned earlier in the week there were probably more cases than health authorities knew about as testing systems remain backlogged by a huge demand for tests in the lead-up to Christmas.

© AAP 2022

Comedic actress Betty White, who capped a career of more than 80 years by becoming America's geriatric sweetheart after Emmy-winning roles on television sitcoms The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died less than three weeks shy of her 100th birthday.

Her agent, Jeff Witjas, told People magazine on Friday: "Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever."

No cause was cited.

In a youth-driven entertainment industry where an actress over 40 faces career twilight, White was an elderly anomaly who was a star in her 60s and a pop culture phenomenon in her 80s and 90s.

Playing on her imminent likeability, White was still starring in a TV sitcom, Hot In Cleveland, at age 92 until it was cancelled in late 2014.

White said her longevity was a result of good health, good fortune and loving her work.

"It's incredible that I'm still in this business and that you are still putting up with me," White said in an appearance at the 2018 Emmy Awards ceremony, where she was honoured for her long career.

"It's incredible that you can stay in a career this long and still have people put up with you. I wish they did that at home."

White was not afraid to mock herself and throw out a joke about her sex life or a snarky crack that one would not expect from a sweet-smiling, white-haired elderly woman. She was frequently asked if, after such a long career, there was anything she still wanted to do and the standard response was: "Robert Redford."

"Old age hasn't diminished her," the New York Times wrote in 2013.

"It has given her a second wind."

Minutes after news emerged of her death, US President Joe Biden told reporters: "That's a shame. She was a lovely lady."

His wife Jill Biden said: "Who didn't love Bette White? We're so sad about her death.'

Betty Marion White was born on January 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, and her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, where she attended Beverly Hills High School.

White started her entertainment career in radio in the late 1930s and by 1939 had made her TV debut singing on an experimental channel in Los Angeles. After serving in the American Women's Voluntary Service, which helped the US effort during World War II, she was a regular on Hollywood On Television, a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949.

A few years later she became a pioneering woman in television by co-founding a production company and serving as a co-creator, producer and star of the 1950s sitcom Life With Elizabeth.

White reached a new level of success on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, playing the host of a home-making television show, the snide, lusty Sue Ann Nivens, whose credo was "a woman who does a good job in the kitchen is sure to reap her rewards in other parts of the house." White won best-supporting actress Emmys for the role in 1975 and 1976.

She won another Emmy in 1986 for The Golden Girls, a sitcom about four older women living together in Miami that featured an age demographic rarely highlighted on American television.

By 2009 she was becoming ubiquitous with more frequent television appearances and a role in the Sandra Bullock film The Proposal. She starred in a popular Snickers commercial that aired during the Super Bowl, taking a brutal hit in a mud puddle in a football game.

White's witty and brassy demeanour came in handy as host of Betty White's Off Their Rockers, a hidden-camera show in which elderly actors pulled pranks on younger people.

"Who would ever dream that I would not only be this healthy, but still be invited to work?" White said in a 2015 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

"That's the privilege ... to still have jobs to do is such a privilege."

© RAW 2022