Frontline health worker explains Delta impact in hospitals

A frontline healthcare worker at the centre of Sydney's COVID-19 crisis says there are still places for people to get help even as some hospitals are forced to turn patients away.

Liverpool Hospital respiratory doctor, Jonathan Williamson, said we need to start looking to hospitals "city wide", telling A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw "we need to share the burden".

"If one hospital is having difficulty because of the share burden of their presentations then patients can be moved, transferred across - through ambulances to other centres," he said.

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Associate Professor Williamson said he's hoping once COVID-19 numbers go down within his own hospital, it can can also help other sites too.

He said the capacity to treat COVID-19 patients at Liverpool has increased.

"(Liverpool Hospital) has gone from 20 beds in the first wave to close to 100 beds at the moment," he said.

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Although frontline healthcare staff are working around the clock to help patients, Associate Professor Williamson said the Delta strain is hitting them much harder, and it's having a bigger impact on younger people.

"Part of that might be a lot of our older population have been vaccinated," he said.

"Young people can become more unwell than they realise. Their oxygen levels can become critically low without necessarily becoming short of breath."

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He said younger people could have unknown factors such as "underlying heart conditions or blood clots".

The respiratory doctor said everyone can get a headache, loss of taste and smell.

But he said shortness of breath and a sensation of dizziness are reasons for concern and could be signs of developing a more significant form of the illness.

He said while he expects cases are yet to peak "it is a bell curve and will come down".