More than 207,000 Tasmanians have experienced COVID-19

Health Department secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks on Wednesday said COVID-19 outbreaks were being managed on wards at all four of Tasmania's major public hospitals as well as at Lyell House residential aged care facility at West Coast District Hospital at Queenstown.

Mr Morgan-Wicks said the state's public hospitals remained at level three of their COVID-19 escalation plans, which had resulted in impacts to elective surgery procedures among other operations.

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She said hospitals were still able to perform emergency surgeries and critical category one elective surgeries when possible as well as day surgeries.

Ms Morgan-Wicks said elective surgeries continued to be outsourced to private hospitals through newly negotiated agreements.

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The state recorded 1586 new COVID cases overnight on Wednesday, which took the total number of active cases in the state to 9717.

More than 207,000 Tasmanians have contracted and recovered from COVID-19 since the virus entered the state in 2020.

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Three more deaths related to COVID-19 were recorded on Wednesday: a woman from the South in her 90s, a woman from the North in her 70s, and a man from the North in his 50s.

Ms Morgan-Wicks said there were 173 COVID-positive patients in Tasmanian public hospitals across Tasmania.

She said 49 patients were being treated specifically for COVID-related illness, of which two were in intensive care.

Ms Morgan-Wicks said there were 361 Tasmanian Health Service staff furloughed for COVID-related reasons.

She said the health service encouraged Tasmanians considered virtual hospital visitation options to avoid seeing patients in-person.

"This advice is due to the fact we have unfortunately experienced some transmission of COVID-19 from visitors," Ms Morgan-Wicks said.

Greens health spokeswoman Rosalie Woodruff said COVID hospitalisations were three times higher than the highest previous peak of 58 in April.

She said it was likely this figure would worsen when cases were expected to peak in August.

"Our hospital system is not coping, unable to keep up with increased cases and staff off sick," she said.

"Every day COVID infection continues largely unchecked in the community, lives and wellbeing are put at avoidable risk."

Labor leader Rebecca White called on the government to provide greater transparency over its COVID-19 management plan for the state and for more regularly public updates.

"The community is very confused," she said.

"We don't have any advice from the government about how we are supposed to continue living with COVID, as they say, in a way that is not going to disrupt society and our economy."

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