Hunter New England region records two deaths, 3410 new cases in 24 hours to 8pm on January 11, 2022

The Hunter New England region had 3410 new COVID-19 infections during the period, up from 1115 the previous day, according to the latest figures released by the local health authority on Wednesday morning.

A man aged in his 50s from the Lake Macquarie area and a man in his 80s from Port Stephens died.

There are 27,168 active cases across the health district, including 101 people in hospital - 10 of those receiving intensive care.

The Newcastle local government area had the most fresh infections for the day (828), followed by Lake Macquarie (680), Maitland (488), Port Stephens (322), Mid Coast (309), Tamworth (211), Cessnock (204), Inverell (72), Moree Plains (70) and Singleton (57).

Next came Gunnedah (39), Armidale (36), Muswellbrook (33), Dungog (25), Upper Hunter (13), Uralla (7), Liverpool Plains (6), Narrabri (5), Glen Innes and Walcha (2) and Gwydir (1).

Central Coast Health no longer provides a daily break-down of COVID-19 figures.

It came on a day when NSW recorded 21 more deaths - a new record for the state - along with almost 35,000 new cases.

Meanwhile, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) is calling on the federal government to urgently repair what it calls the nation's troubled vaccine rollout for children aged five to 11.

The college says it has had widespread reports of practices receiving insufficient stock or expired vaccine doses, having orders cancelled at the last minute or doses not arriving without any explanation.

The RACGP wants the federal government to work with state and territory governments to make additional paediatric vaccines available to general practices, ensure GPs receive the doses they request, make more doses available to GPs and improve lines of communication between government and general practice teams.

"GPs and their practice teams are trying to vaccinate the nation's children with one arm tied behind their back," RACGP president Dr Karen Price said.

"Omicron cases are escalating and term one of school is fast approaching. Urgent improvements to the children's vaccine rollout must happen now so that our kids can receive at least one vaccine dose before returning to the classroom.

"GPs are telling me that they can't obtain enough stock, whilst others have had their orders cancelled at the last minute or received expired doses. Some practices are being given 50 or 100 doses a week when they have around 1500 children on their books. It's not hard to do the maths and realise that we simply cannot keep up with demand."

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