A health worker gets details from a resident at a COVID-19 drive-through a testing clinic in Sydney. AFP

Sydney coronavirus caseload may hit peak next week as Australia steps up vaccine rollout and trying to contain a third wave of infections that has hit its two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and its capital Canberra, forcing more than half the country's 25 million people into strict stay-at-home restrictions.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the government's modelling revealed the state would require its highest number of intensive care beds in early October, with "additional pressure on the system" in the next few weeks.

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Daily cases in Sydney's worst-affected suburbs are expected to rise to as high as 2,000 until the middle of this month, the modelling showed.

"If too many of us do the wrong thing, (if) there are too many super-spreading events, we could see those numbers higher," Berejiklian said during a media briefing in Sydney, the state capital.

A total of 1,071 COVID-19 cases are currently in New South Wales hospitals, with 177 people in intensive care (ICU), 67 of whom require ventilation. Officials have said they had quadrupled ICU beds to about 2,000 in the state early last year to handle the pandemic.