Sydney, Jul 11 (IANS): Hospitalisations of Covid-19 patients in Australia's most populous state of New South Wales (NSW) continued to rise on Monday, despite the number of new infections falling.

The NSW Health department reported 7,586 new cases on Monday, down from 8,670 on Sunday. There were 2,002 cases with the virus being treated in hospital, including 63 in intensive care.

Monday's hospitalisation marked the first time the number surpassed 2,000 since early February this year when the first Omicron wave was about to end in the state, Xinhua news agency reported.

The NSW Health department warned last week that the state is facing the latest wave of Covid-19, which is likely to peak in late July or early August. The department urged people to get the booster vaccine.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Chair of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of South Australia, Adrian Esterman said at the moment hospitals across the country are under enormous pressure and the health system is struggling.

He added that two doses of vaccine are not sufficient against the dominant sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 in the country.

"It requires that booster dose to really bring people's immune system up to a level where it can find the virus."