Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Mr Hazzard said he expected everybody in NSW to contract the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Victorian Premier Dan Andrews and NSW state leader Dominic Perrotet have been measured in their comments in the lead up to Christmas as the latest surge in the Omicron variant begins to dominate the news.
But Mr Hazzard did not hold back when describing his assessment of the current state of play, adding “everybody in Australia wil get Omicron”.
He did suggest that vaccination rates, and a surge in booster shot take up, did mean symptoms were far milder with the new variant.
“Bottom line here is that we would expect that pretty well everybody in NSW at some point will get Omicron,” Mr Hazzard said.
NSW has continued to set new benchmarks in regard to positive cases, its Boxing Day tally of 6394 (to 8pm on December 26) again setting a new single-day case record.
There were more than 109,000 people tested in NSW on Boxing Day.
There are only 11 active cases in Murray River Council and eight in the Edward River Council on boxing day.
In Campaspe Shire there were 95 active COVID-19 cases registered on Christmas Eve as Echuca-Moama testing centres continued to be in great demand.
The Rotary Park testing site is operating from 8am until 1.30pm, with long waits as an outbreak in the Lockington community has caused plenty of festive-season headaches.
Testing centres across Australia have been closing early after hitting capacity on a daily basis, Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania cases increasing at an alarming rate.
Queensland set a new high of 765 cases, 151 of those confirmed as the Omicron variant, on Boxing Day.
With the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race starting yesterday the state was bracing for an influx of visitors.
When Tasmania opened its borders to “at risk” states on December 15 there were no cases in the island state.
Tasmania reported 44 COVID-19 cases on Christmas Eve.
Even the seemingly “safe” West Australian community has experienced a minor outbreak in the past few days.
There were two new cases recorded on Christmas Eve, with reports suggesting they were connected to an unvaccinated backpacker.
Lockington accounted for 34 of the 95 cases reported in the Campaspe region, with Echuca’s total reaching 20 positive cases.
Rochester, with 17 cases, was the next most prolific of the Campase towns from the latest Victorian health figures.
Cases have not significantly affected the operation of tourism and hospitality venues, although one Echuca Hotel was forced to close last week because of a close contact situation involving staff.
The same happened to an Echuca gymnasium where several members were forced to be tested after being exposed to a positive case.
There has been a huge response to the change in conditions for booster shots in Victoria.
The time frame from the second vaccination dose to booster date will be cut from from five months to four months from January 4 and then to just three months from January 31.
In NSW and Victoria there are indoor face mask rules as an influx of tourists to the town continues to have Echuca-Moama residents in a nervous state.
Around the world there has been another surge in cases, the Uniting Kingdom registering 122,186 cases on one record-breaking day.
In the UK it is reported that one in 20 people are COVID-19 positive.
France has also set a new single-day record with 100,000 cases recorded on Christmas Eve, while in the United States Florida alone has registered 32,000 cases in a day.
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