Chief Health Officer Dr Andy Robertson has confirmed Western Australia reached its COVID peak two weeks ago and the state was now past the worst of the Omicron wave.

The peak was on March 29, when 9754 cases were recorded. The total number of active COVID cases in the state peaked on April 1 at 54,064. There are currently 40,539 active cases, with WA Health reporting 8144 new cases on Thursday.

Robertson said WA had reached the stage where the rules were significantly impacting on people’s ability to go to work and school.

“The risk had, as we’d got over the peak, dropped down and we felt that this was the appropriate time to move to that [new] close contact definition,” he told the ABC.

“There may be some additional cases that present, but it does allow a lot more people who are asymptomatic to return to work to return to school, and obviously reduces the load on contact tracing for a number of industries and schools.”

Robertson said he believed there would likely only be a small rise in cases as a result of the relaxed rules.

“There are still a number of measures that are quite effective at reducing the spread and obviously, the two-square-metre rule is one,” he said.

“We are coming down, but we are still slowly coming out and so there’s still a lot of disease currently circulating in the Perth areas.

“These measures are really designed to slow that spread of the disease, enable people to still get out and socialise and to meet with friends and family but to do it in a safe and effective way.”

Premier Mark McGowan announced on Wednesday restrictions would be pulled back as a result of declining case numbers and lower-than-predicted hospitalisations and people in intensive care.

He said he hoped the new restrictions would have an impact on getting people back to work and school and out in the city again.

On top of the 8144 cases announced on Thursday, two historical deaths were recorded; a woman in her 90s and another in her 60s.

Robertson said around 28 per cent of people who had died with COVID-19 were unvaccinated and another five to six per cent had only received one dose.

There are currently 200 people in hospital and five in intensive care.

• via WAtoday