Tamworth COVID-19 pandemic: three months since last local tested positive to coronavirus; one new case confirmed in Newcastle

The milestone was reached on Friday - the same day Hunter New England Health (HNEH) announced another patient in the Hunter had been confirmed to have the infection.

The last Tamworth resident confirmed to have the novel coronavirus got her positive test result back on April 17.

The 58-year-old woman tragically died in Tamworth hospital from complications associated with the deadly virus, the day before her diagnosis.

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Tamworth has had a total case count of 13 patients since the pandemic struck the city in March. The other 12 have officially recovered, according to NSW Health statistics.

HNEH confirmed the New England North West has been free of known active coronavirus cases since the end of May.

A new case of COVID-19 in the Hunter area was announced by HNEH on Friday.

The woman has a known source of infection and is understood to have been in isolation for the "entire period she has been infectious", according to authorities.

Despite no new cases recorded in Tamworth in the past three months and close to 8000 tests being taken, public health physician Dr David Durrheim warned now was not the time to let their guard down.

"The virus is on our doorstep," he said.

"The threat is now very real, we've seen what's happened in Victoria and obviously now in South West Sydney as well."

Dr Durrheim said locals had done the right thing during "the first phase" of the coronavirus crisis and to keep up the good work.

Across the entire HNEH district, 110,000 people have now been swabbed for the virus, according to Dr Durrheim.

Tamworth residents have been bucking a worrying trend over the past three weeks. While testing across the HNEH district has dropped, the Tamworth region has recorded a week-on-week increase in COVID testing.

Tamworth residents - fuelled by what authorities think is the worrying situation in Victoria and Sydney as well as the flu season - have increasingly been showing up for screening more and more in the past three weeks.

Tamworth clinics have seen almost 250 additional tests week-on-week for that time period.

"Get tested now if you've got a sore throat, a runny nose, shortness of breath, a cough, please don't take that out into the community," Dr Durrheim said.

In the past 24 hours, NSW recorded eight new confirmed cases of COVID-19, while Victoria announced a record-breaking 428 new confirmed cases.

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