?It?s a ghost town?: Covid has left NSW?s second-largest city reeling

On the main street of Newcastle, the Happy Wombat pub has become an oasis in the desert.

"I feel like I'm running the last waterhole, and everyone's coming here to drink the muddy water," publican Luke Tilse tells Guardian Australia.

"Not that I'm saying my customers are animals."

Located on Hunter Street, the city's main drag, it's one of the only hotels that has not closed its doors during what was, pre-pandemic, the busiest trading week of the year.

"It's like the apocalypse out there," Tilse says. "Everyone is staying away, either out of fear of getting Covid or having to isolate over Christmas, or because they have it. It's a ghost town."

Newcastle, the second-largest city in New South Wales, is the centre of the largest Covid-19 outbreak in Australia.

On Wednesday local health authorities said there were 5,728 total active cases in the Hunter region, of which Newcastle is the capital. The vast majority have come in the past seven days, a surge prompted by an outbreak of the Omicron variant at a popular nightclub, Argyle House, known locally as Fanny's.