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Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he has no intention of creating new laws mandating vaccines for ordinary workers.

But he said the solicitor-general determined it may be considered "reasonable" for employers to require high-risk staff to get vaccinated.

"The rule of law does provide employers to give reasonable directions to their staff," Mr Morrison said after a National Cabinet meeting today.

READ MORE: Sydney woman who died from COVID-19 caught virus from infected nurse in hospital

"Where an employee may be at great risk of actually contracting the virus, the employer would be in those circumstances seeking to afford some protection for their staff.

"For those who are working in an area where they're taking care of very vulnerable people, that is another set of circumstances."

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has said rapid antigen testing in workplaces is "part of the solution in the future".

"It would need to be very carefully worked through by an employer to do rapid antigen tests," Professor Kelly said.

"They are not without their issues."

PCR testing remains more accurate and more appropriate in this wave of the pandemic, Professor Kelly said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said rapid antigen testing would play a greater role when vaccination rates reach the 80 per cent mark.

Vaccination program continues

Mr Morrison said the vaccination program has "turned a corner".

More than 240,000 vaccines were administered yesterday.

Mr Morrison said all premiers and chief ministers had fully agreed to the national plan outlined last week.

READ MORE: NSW records 291 local COVID-19 cases, premier warns worse to come

"That pathway takes up to the position where we live with this virus, where we ultimately start saying goodbye to lockdowns once we reached 70 per cent vaccination in the population," he said.

The NSW outbreak is being suppressed, Australia's chief medical officer has said, but there is a need for a circuit-breaker.

"We would have expected without the vaccination, and without the lockdown and without the other measures that are in place, this would have been much higher rates of illness, hospitalisation and death up to now," Professor Paul Kelly said.

"There is still worrying signs in terms of unlinked cases, new chains of transmission, new exposure sites and geographic spread and the like.

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"There is no sense that it's heading rapidly towards zero which is what remains our national approach at the moment."

The Delta strain outbreak is a "pandemic of the unvaccinated", Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has said.

"We know that vaccines work to decrease severe illness. It decreases transmission. It decreases death and it is clearly the way forward," Professor Kelly said.

"Vaccination is the way out."

He noted that four million cases were diagnosed in the past week worldwide, nearly all the Delta strain.

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The New South Wales Government has announced Vivid Sydney will be cancelled for the second year in a row amid the state's ongoing COVID lockdown.

The cancellation comes after the event was initially postponed earlier this year to September.

It has now been completely canned due to "ongoing uncertainty" and to "minimise the impact on event attendees, partners, artists, sponsors and suppliers".

NSW Minister for Jobs, Investment and Tourism Stuart Ayres said the "disappointing" decision was made as it was the "responsible" choice.

READ MORE: Man charged over alleged sexual assault of Brittany Higgins

"It's incredibly disappointing to cancel for the second year, but the most responsible decision was to cancel early, giving everyone certainty and minimising impacts where possible," Mr Ayres said.

"The health and safety of our community is our highest priority, which is why we're encouraging everyone to get vaccinated so we can get back to enjoying COVID-safe events again soon."

Despite the event's 2021 cancellation, Mr Ayres said that preparation was already underway for Vivid's 2022 return.

"As we work together to contain the current outbreak and get our community vaccinated, we can all look forward to the return of major events like Vivid Sydney that bring us together in celebration," Mr Ayres said.

"Our artists and creative industries are so eager to put on a show, and we can't wait to see the Harbour City shining brightly again.

A woman whose mother died after catching coronavirus in a Sydney hospital says she is "devastated".

Susan Fisher, 64, from Macquarie Fields in the city's south-west, died in Liverpool Hospital this morning after catching the virus from a nurse.

She was being treated in the neurology ward for chronic pain and had been in hospital for more than a month.

READ MORE: NSW records 291 local COVID-19 cases

Ms Fisher fell ill a week ago and her daughter Linda told 9News she deteriorated rapidly before her death.

The infected nurse, who worked across the aged care ward and Ms Fisher's, had only received the first of two jabs.

Ms Fisher was not vaccinated and was reluctant to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine because of the very rare chance of blood clots.

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"She was supposed to be transferred to Campbelltown Hospital so she could start rehab and come home," Linda Fisher told 9News.

"They kept putting that off for two or three weeks and that's when she caught COVID.

"There was no return after that, unfortunately."

It is the second death from this outbreak connected to Liverpool Hospital following the death of a man in his 90s.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant announced Ms Fisher's death this morning.

"I extend my apologies and sympathies to the family, but we know how the transmission occurred, how the exposure happened," Dr Chant said.

"Again, my apologies to the family."

NSW recorded 291 cases today, the most since the beginning of the pandemic.

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A 26-year-old man will appear before the ACT Magistrates Court for an alleged sexual assault of Brittany Higgins in 2019.

The man will face one charge of sexual intercourse without consent.

Police will allege the man had sexual intercourse with Ms Higgins, a former Liberal staffer, without consent at Parliament House on Saturday, March 23, 2019.

Police first received a report in April 2019. The investigation remained open and in February 2021 a formal complaint was made.

Detectives have since spoken to several witnesses and collected evidence as part of the investigation.

Police today served the man's legal representative with a summons to appear before court on September 16.

The maximum penalty for this offence is 12 years imprisonment.

Ms Higgins went public in February with allegations she was sexually assaulted in then-Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds' ministerial office in the early hours of March 23, 2019.

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