Seven deaths, 1200-plus cases reported overnight in NSW

The deaths include two men in their 80s, a man in his 50s, a woman in her 70s, a man in his 70s and a woman in her 80s.

"It's really important to knows that I've been commenting in the last few days that we anticipate October will be the worst month for the number of people that lose their lives and also for the rate of people in hospital," Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned.

She also said that NSW is expected to become the first state or territory to hit 70 per cent vaccination, Ms Berejiklian said.

And with that she announced that exercise limits would be lifted in Sydney's local government areas of concern, bringing them into line with the rest of the state.

Of the 1,288 locally acquired cases reported to 8pm last night:

NSW Health's ongoing sewage surveillance program has recently detected fragments of the virus that causes COVID-19 at sewage treatment plants across NSW. Fragments were detected in Bega and Cooma in Southern NSW LHD and Bomaderry in Illawarra Shoalhaven LHD.

In Victoria there were 176 new cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to midnight yesterday.

Yesterday NSW reported 1116 locally-acquired COVID-19 cases and four deaths.