?State-induced chaos?: business groups call for less restrictions even as Australia?s Covid cases soar

Business groups have called on state governments to continue dismantling Covid restrictions even as case numbers soar amid staff shortages caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

The groups renewed their demands for the increased use of rapid antigen testing to enable staff who come into contact with coronavirus cases to return to work quickly if they are free of the virus instead of having to wait at least a day for the results of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.

Covid numbers rocketed on Wednesday, with the number of new cases in the nation's most infected state, New South Wales, nearly doubling overnight, from 6,062 to 11,201. Numbers in Victoria, which has the second highest number of cases, also jumped, rising from 2,738 to 3,767.

However, business groups said the economic havoc wreaked by the new variant was mostly due to the responses to it by governments rather than being the direct effect of people getting sick.

Innes Willox, the chief executive of employer association AI Group, said Australian business was "now suffering from state-induced chaos".

"The biggest danger to improving business conditions is not Omicron but the response to it especially by states who continue to act in muddle-headed, self-centred ways by imposing overly-onerous and ever-changing conditions on business, their employees and customers," he said.

"For our recovery to maintain its momentum business needs certainty and continuity from the states who can properly balance risks and not needlessly promote fear."