Four COVID patients now in Orange Hospital

The seriousness of the disease is illustrated though by news of a number of hospitalisations in Orange.

More than a third of confirmed cases of COVID currently residing in Orange are in hospital.

Speaking on Tuesday, Western NSW Local Health District chief executive revealed four of the city's 11 cases are in hospital.

"This is a risk for all of our community. We've got elderly members of our community that are vulnerable that will end up in hospital if they are not vaccinated," he said.

"So could I please urge everyone, don't become a statistic on this list, don't become the next person on a ventilator because you're not vaccinated."

"What we know is 95 per cent of people who end up in a hospital bed and particularly in intensive care, aren't vaccinated. It's not rocket science, the vaccine will stop you becoming really crook. It is best thing we can all do to stop us ending up in intensive care or ending up on life support with a tube down your throat."

There are 17 patients admitted to hospital across the Western district, four are in ICU.

The warning comes after there were zero COVID cases recorded in the city up to 8pm Monday night, but there were 54 across Western NSW.

There were two cases in the city the day before, but neither of them had been infectious in the community.

But Mr McLachlan said that doesn't mean there aren't more people with COVID who haven't been tested.

"I'd say there's a very high risk around the Orange community and surrounding communities that there's people infectious in the community that need to come and get tested and go through all of the things to keep themselves and the community safe," he said.

"It's certainly not time to relax and think that everything's ok just because we've had one or two days without someone being infectious in the community.

"Whether it was three, five or seven days ago they could be your neighbour, it could be the person standing next to you in the supermarket."

Across the whole of Western NSW, there have been 133000 people that have had a first dose of the vaccine and 63000 that have had a second dose.

Mr McLachlan is pleased to see the "rapidly increasing" number.

"In the last month we've seen doubling of those numbers, starting from 34 per cent a month ago to 54 per cent with a first dose now and 13 per cent with a second dose now up to 26 per cent," he added.

"Our challenge is to double that again in the next month. So please look for a vaccination option quickly and today. There is a lot of vaccination opportunities between the GPs, the Aboriginal medical services, the respiratory clinics, the pharmacies and our vaccination hubs and pop up clinics."