Morning mail: Covid positive test rate hits new high, Canada’s mystery neurological illness, 2022 films

Monday: NSW's Covid positive rate hit 20% on Sunday as Australia recorded 32,000 new cases. Plus: this year's top Aussie flicks

Good morning and happy new year! It's nice to be back in your inbox and we hope you stayed safe and had a lovely festive season. The year is off to a tumultuous start with many states reporting record Covid infections and growing hospitalisations, compounded by concerns about the availability of tests. But there is some hope, with new studies indicating the Omicron variant currently spreading around the world is less severe than its predecessors.

Australia recorded 32,000 new Covid cases on Sunday, and the positivity rate reached 20.3%, meaning one in five people tested had Covid. The figure is well above the 5% the WHO says is needed to keep the spread of Covid under control. So what does a 20% rate mean for Australia? Here's our explainer. There were 1,066 people in hospital with Covid on Sunday - an 18% increase a day after the number had already doubled between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve. The number of PCR tests in NSW dropped by almost 30,000 in 24 hours after the government encouraged people not to line up unless they had symptoms or were a close contact. Victoria's health minister is expected to make an announcement in the coming days on widening access to rapid antigen tests after extreme heat caused the closure of eight of the state's testing sites on Saturday, blowing out queues and test result wait times.