More than 136,000 people were tested across NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm Sunday, with the premier confirming 1281 new cases as she delivered the daily COVID update on Monday morning.

"According to the modelling I have received, we are likely to reach a peak in cases in the next week or so," Ms Berejiklian said.

"Therefore our likely peak in intensive care beds required around early, mid-October. So that is what the best modelling tells us at this stage, but I do want to qualify that by saying that a number of variables are associated with that modelling."

More than 1000 people are in NSW hospitals being treated for the virus, with 67 of 177 patients in intensive care on ventilators.

Decisions are yet to be made about any easing or lifting of the lockdown in regional areas, with chief health officer Kerry Chant saying data from the weekend is still under review.

In the Riverina's far west, testing is underway in the Balranald community after two cases emerged at the weekend.

In other news

NSW Health's Jeremy McAnulty revealed on Sunday it was suspected the Balranald cases could be false positives, however the Far West Local Health District [LHD] has urged anyone in the area to get tested if they have the slightest of symptoms.

Two more exposure sites were also revealed for the region on Sunday, after an essential worker from Victoria stopped at service stations at Coolac and Henty last week. They are listed as casual contact sites.

There are no confirmed cases in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District [MLHD], which at the weekend ruled a suspected case isolating in Wagga as a false positive.

In the regions, more than 100 new cases were detected in the Sunday testing, according to NSW Health.

The Western NSW LHD, where Dubbo has been the epicentre of the regional outbreak, has passed 800 cases in the outbreak after another 44 were revealed in the 24 hours to 8pm Sunday.

The Nepean Blue Mountains LHD recorded 67 new cases, the Illawarra Shoalhaven another 21, eight new detections were made on the Central Coast, five more in the Hunder New England and five in the Southern NSW LHD.

Seven more cases have emerged in correctional centres and nine are yet to be assigned to an LHD.

Six of the Far West NSW LHD's seven cases were in Broken Hill, with one more found in Wilcannia, deputy premier John Barilaro said.

"Vaccination is the key to protect regional and rural communities from these outbreaks, more importantly ... our path into the future," he reiterated.

The interstate, trans-Tasman situation

Sewage surveillance has also detected fragments of the virus in Byron Bay, where there are no known cases of COVID-19. Everyone in that area is urged to monitor for the onset of symptoms and, if they appear, to immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result is received.

Four of the five deaths from COVID-19 reported yesterday occurred in hospitals, the exception being the passing of a man in his 60s at his home in the Southern Highlands.

A south east Sydney man aged in his 90s, who was a resident of and acquired his infection at the St George Aged Care Facility in Bexley, died in St George Hospital.

A woman in her 80s from northern Sydney died at Ryde Hospital, while two western Sydney women - one in her 50s, another in her 80s - died at Westmead Hospital, Dr Kerry Chant said.

Assessments are still being made as to whether regional areas might emerge from lockdown when the clock strikes midnight on Friday.

"We're currently just reviewing all the data from the weekend and we'll provide our advice to government," Dr Chant said.

"I would just again urge our regional communities to get vaccinated. Vaccine supply should be increasing through general practice and a number of those settings and again, I just encourage people not to delay, please get vaccinated.

"I want to particularly call out our rural GPs and our pharmacists for the good job they're doing in getting those vaccine rates... that is so critical for the upcoming two weeks."

The fallout from Victoria's border bubble amendments continues, with the state Member for Murray Helen Dalton taking aim at her federal counterpart for not seeming to do more as a Riverina border community was dropped.

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP has accused Sussan Ley, federal member for Farrer, of remaining silent on the border woes, who hit back suggesting the state MPs could be of more help in pressuring the deputy premier on his plan for financial assistance for the border.

More on the pandemic

One Wagga couple was determined to not let lockdown get in the way of their big day, and at the weekend tied the knot where they first met - at the butchers.

Liam and Hayley Hanigan first locked eyes over the counter of Liam's South Wagga Butchers, and with stay-at-home orders thwarting their planned wedding with 110 friends at Big Springs, they went ahead and said "I do" anyway.

"We knew a few weeks ago that we had to pull the plug... But, then they announced that we could have a small wedding again, and we realised we could be married on the original day planned," Mr Hanigan said.

Who was to know that his jokey suggestion early in the engagement would come true.

"He loves his butcher shop, but I said 'no way', and here we are," Mrs Hanigan said.

"Obviously, every little girl dreams of her magical wedding day, but at the end of the day, we are still together, and we are so lucky that we can get married."

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