The unwanted milestone was brought up on Sunday, when another 119 were reported, bringing the active cases number up to 1,677.

However, this is not all that surprising according to local GP, Dr Ian Kamerman, who said Tamworth's numbers remained very low for quite a long time.

"The pandemic has been going on now for two years, and the first year or more was obviously quite slow, Australia was very good at closing its borders and we protected ourselves until the vaccines became available," he said.

"But now we have the Omicron variant and it's widespread throughout the country so getting to this sort of number is not really surprising at all."

The LGA's numbers peaked on January 22, 2022 when 256 cases were recorded, although the emergence of rapid antigen tests (RATs) has made it harder to be absolutely certain of how many people have it.

Dr Kamerman said he has very rarely heard of people in the region getting the virus twice, and has no trouble believing around one in every six people have contracted it.

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He also said that on a whole, people have been adopting the 'learn to live with it' strategy now, but some are still remaining hesitant.

"The approach by individuals can be quite different, most people have moved to let's live with it and let's be sensible about things - wearing a mask when they're in crowds, making sure they're fully vaccinated, hand washing, social distancing," he said.

"Others are spending a lot of time essentially at home and not mixing with people at all, and often those are people that are elderly or have underlying health conditions and don't want to take the risk of getting COVID."

He said it was a relief the Tamworth Country Music Festival had been postponed, as it would have coincided with the city's peak. He believes it will be much safer to go ahead in April, especially given RATs are now commonly available.

People's behaviour has also changed over the last two years, Dr Kamerman said, with readily available hand sanitiser, masks in crowded places, alternatives to shaking hands, QR codes and keeping on top of vaccinations all becoming part of the new normal.

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