Western Australia’s daily COVID-19 case tally has doubled in a matter of days as the peak of the state’s Omicron outbreak looms.

WA Health on Friday reported 5005 new infections, eclipsing the figure of 2365 cases reported at the start of the week.

There are 20,788 active cases and 92 people in hospital with the virus, including three in intensive care.

The spike in cases backs up the prediction by Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson that infections would double every few days as the peak approached.

A peak of about 10,000 daily infections is now expected to arrive as soon as next week.

Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the number of people in hospital was likely to reach a high closer to the end of March.

“If the modelling is correct, we hope to be over the worst of it by the end of this month,” Ms Sanderson said on Thursday.

“We would hope that the peak lasts hopefully no more than a week. But again, Western Australia is a bit of a experiment population.

“We haven’t had large amounts of COVID in the community, we have exceptionally high vaccination rates, so actually we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.”

About 50 per cent of the people in hospital with COVID-19 in WA are unvaccinated, the health minister said.

“There’s no stronger evidence (of the benefits of vaccination) than this,” she said.

“This is in our community now, it’s in our hospitals. If you’re not vaccinated, please get vaccinated.”

– AAP