Warrnambool records most fully vaccinated residents of Victoria's regional cities

Behind is Geelong (41.4 per cent), Bendigo (40.7 per cent) and Horsham (40.7 per cent), new federal data shows.

Warrnambool is also leading the way in first doses of Victoria's regional cities, with 66.5 per cent of the population receiving a first dose.

Numbers of fully vaccinated residents are high across the south-west; Corangamite (38.6 per cent), Glenelg (35.1 per cent), Moyne (39.2 per cent), Colac-Otway (38.4 per cent) and Southern Grampians (41.7 per cent).

The percentages are based on the population aged 15 and over.

Almost one thousand more coronavirus vaccination doses went into south-west Victorian arms this week as more people became eligible for the jab.

In the past seven days to Wednesday at Warrnambool's vaccination hub there were 3298 vaccines administered - 1711 AstraZeneca and 1587 Pfizer.

It marks a jump of almost 30 per cent on the week before when 2537 vaccines were administered - 1417 AstraZeneca and 1120 Pfizer.

Those figures don't include vaccines at GPs across the region.

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Victoria now has 33.3 per cent of its population fully vaccinated with two doses - 4.7 million people. 54.3 per cent have received a first dose.

33.7 per cent of Australians are fully vaccinated and 56.9 per cent have received a first dose.

It's still a way off the COVID vaccine targets of 70 to 80 per cent vaccine coverage set out in the Doherty Institute's national plan.

Once that target is reached, Victoria can reopen safely Premier Daniel Andrews said on Sunday.

"The smaller the unvaccinated group is, the more manageable - from a health service point of view - those inevitable positive cases will be and very serious illness," he said.

"Everyone needs to go and get vaccinated, there is no alternative.

"Not only is it a good choice for you but it's a good choice for all of us for not if, but when the health system comes under enormous pressure.

"COVID is not the only thing that hospitals deal with, they have to deal with serious accidents, they have to deal with strokes, heart attacks, cancer and premature babies. They have to deal with everything and everyone and hospitals will finish up full of unvaccinated people who've made the wrong choice; unvaccinated people who could have been vaccinated.

"That's the terrible scenes we're seeing from the U.S, where people are in ICU begging to be vaccinated and they have to be told no, it's too late.

"We would have that here right now if we opened up. We would have so many people in hospital that it would be unmanageable."

New South Wales COVID numbers continue to soar, with a record 1,218 new cases and six deaths as pressure on the state's hospital system reaches critical levels.

Sunday's case numbers increased by almost 200 on the previous day, which was itself a new daily case record for any Australian jurisdiction throughout the pandemic.

Hospitalisations are surging too; there are now 813 COVID patients in hospitals across NSW - 35 more than Saturday.

Currently 126 people are in intensive care, 54 of whom are on ventilators.

Of those in intensive care, 113 had not received any vaccine doses, while 12 had received one dose. One patient has been double vaccinated.

The six new deaths included four people who were not vaccinated. The other two people had received their first dose.

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