Tasmanians will need to register to receive government-supplied rapid antigen tests from tomorrow.
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People have been able to obtain the free tests from testing sites around the state if they exhibited COVID-19 symptoms or had been notified as being a close contact of the COVID case.
Health Department deputy secretary Dale Webster said from Saturday, people would no longer be able to turn up to a RAT collection point without first successfully registering for a test kit online through the government's coronavirus website or through the Public Health Hotline.
He said people who lived outside an area with a collection point had the option of having a rapid antigen test couriered to them.
Registration for government-supplied RATs will open at noon on Friday.
There are almost 8000 Tasmanians with COVID at the moment with 1100 new cases identified on Thursday.
Almost 1900 people left a seven-day quarantine period on Thursday.
There are 23 patients in state hospitals with COVID with 10 of those in hospital specifically to be treated for the virus.
Mr Webster said there were 15 patients in the Royal Hobart Hospital, two patients in the Launceston General Hospital and six people in hospital in the North-West.
He said 293 state health workers had tested positive to COVID-19 and 339 workers had been identified as close contacts.
COVID-19 vaccines were made available to Tasmanian children aged between five and 11 years old on Monday.
Mr Webster said more than 3000 doses of the vaccine had been administered to children in the age group so far.
He said 47 per cent of Tasmanian children in the age group had a vaccination booking or had received their first dose in a state clinic.
This does not include children who have a booking with a general practitioner for a vaccination.
Mr Webster said more than 80 per cent of children aged between 12 and 15 years old had received the first dose of the vaccine.
From tomorrow, a number of employers can make an application to WorkSafe Tasmania for an exemption for workers deemed close contacts though critical to a workplace's operation.
Premier Peter Gutwein said this would apply to workers in emergency services, private sector health care workers, prison and detention officers, and those employed in power and utility services, freight services, public transport and at warehouses or by grocery suppliers.
Close contacts in these categories will be able to continue to show up to their workplaces if they are asymptomatic, and return a negative rapid antigen test.
Mr Gutwein acknowledged the transition to living with COVID was difficult for many people in the state, but said lift would slowly return to normal.
"This transition period will end," he said.
"Things will return to normal.
"What we are experiencing now is not living living with COVID, what we are experiencing now is transitioning to living with COVID."
Mr Gutwein said in several months' time, COVID-19 would be dealt with as the flu and other respiratory illnesses were dealt with.
But he said even though the vast majority of recent COVID cases in Tasmania had been mild, it had to be accepted that some people may die as a result of the virus.
"We know from our modelling that some people will get seriously ill, some people will require hospitalisation, and unfortunately there will be a small number of people that will die," Mr Gutwein said.
"That's the same as we experience every year with influenza."