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Over 60s eligible for Pfizer vaccine in Queensland from Saturday
By Felicity Caldwell
People aged 60 and over will be allowed to have a Pfizer COVID-19 jab in Queensland from this weekend.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said supply had finally increased, which means over 60s could have a choice between the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines.
The change means anybody aged 12 and over is now eligible for the Pfizer jab.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.Credit:Matt Dennien
The state will also offer walk-in jabs this weekend in a “super weekend for vaccinations” at community vaccination hubs.
Queensland recorded no new community acquired cases, with the state appearing to quash a recent outbreak after a student at St Thomas More College at Sunnybank tested positive.
Ms Palaszczuk said nowhere in the world had stopped the spread of the Delta strain of the virus, “except at this stage in Queensland”.
“Once again, the people of this state have been threatened by a COVID outbreak and once again they have fought back,” she said.
There were 15,812 tests performed in the past 24 hours, with 24,947 vaccines delivered in Queensland Health vaccination hubs - a new record.
Western Australia is also opening up the Pfizer vaccination to people aged 60 and over from Monday, after the state’s top doctor declared confidence in supply of the vaccine.
NSW Premier to front media as state approaches 80 per cent vaccine milestone
By Michaela Whitbourn
While NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian foreshadowed last week that the government would not appear at daily COVID-19 press conferences from Monday and the numbers would instead be delivered by NSW Health via an online video, she is fronting the media at 11am today.
The state is expected to reach a new milestone today: 80 per cent of people aged 16 and over receiving a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday.Credit:Edwina Pickles
Ms Berejiklian said last week that the daily coronavirus press conferences fronted by her or another government minister (or both) would be held on a “needs basis” from Monday.
Nevertheless, she provided the coronavirus update on Monday, and said this was always the plan. NSW Health’s Dr Jeremy McAnulty delivered Tuesday’s update at a press conference in Sydney.
Victorian Ombudsman to probe travel permit system as residents trapped interstate
By Tammy Mills
The Victorian Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the state’s interstate travel permit system.
Ombudsman Deborah Glass says her office has received more than 80 complaints from people wanting to enter Victoria, mostly residents trying to come home.
Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass.Credit:Penny Stephens
The complaints include children wanting to come home to be with their parents after their school in NSW closed and a woman trying to return home to care for her adult daughter after she was permitted to travel to NSW for a funeral.
The state’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton declared all of NSW an “extreme risk zone” and Victoria closed its border on July 9.
Ms Glass said in a press release this morning there could be systemic issues about departmental decision-making.
“The situation is increasingly urgent with the extended lockdown. Some people are telling my office they face effective homelessness, struck interstate with nowhere else to go,” Ms Glass said.
The Ombudsman said the complaints raise concerns about the discretion the department is exercising under the public health directions the rules were made under.
Ms Glass said her investigation would be swift to assist the Department of Health to identify urgent improvements if necessary.
She said the decisions the department made were difficult, requiring officials to balance individual rights with the safety of the broader community.
Other complaints were from a student who wants to go home to be with his family for health and wellbeing, and a woman who wants to go home to her farm to care for her animals.
‘Dose of misinformation’: GPs alarmed at people seeking jab exemption
By Michaela Whitbourn
Dr Karen Price, president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, spoke this morning on ABC News 24 about people seeking COVID-19 vaccine exemption letters from GPs.
You don’t need to get an exemption letter. There’s very, very few [contraindications] to the vaccine.
If you didn’t have one vaccine, you can have another. We need to get on with seeing our patients. We need to get on with the vaccine rollout. What we would like is for people who think they need an exemption to come to us and have a talk about what their fears and concerns are.
Dr Price said vaccination was “the way out of the pandemic” and said GPs were, unfortunately, on the receiving end of abuse from some vaccine-hesitant patients.
RACGP president Dr Karen Price.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Asked by ABC host Michael Rowland if she would argue “a lot of the calls for exemptions simply are unfounded on medical grounds”, Dr Price said: “Yes, I call it a dose of misinformation.”
She said that in her role “I certainly get all sorts of people saying to me all sorts of things from Nuremberg [war crimes trials], to jail time, and what I’m doing to the population by talking about vaccination”.
“So there’s a lot of very angry and very confused people out there, and I really would urge them to have a more, you know, respectful discussion with doctors who are actually there to give them the science and help them through the difficult time.”
Victoria records 423 new COVID-19 cases, two deaths
By Michaela Whitbourn
Victoria’s coronavirus numbers are in. The state has recorded 423 new local cases of COVID-19 and two deaths.
One of those deaths was first reported yesterday: the Australian Services Union confirmed on Tuesday that one of their Victorian members, 46-year-old Martin “Marty” Blight, had died with COVID-19.
It brings the total number of deaths during the current outbreak to eight.
The source of the majority of cases (274) remain under investigation, with 149 linked to the current outbreak.
Yesterday, the state recorded 445 local coronavirus cases and two deaths: a Craigieburn man in his 20s, who died at home and was diagnosed with COVID-19 post-mortem, and a St Albans woman in her 80s, who died in hospital.
Software bug inflates Indigenous vaccination rate in Victoria
By Jack Latimore
The vaccination rate for Indigenous people in Victoria remains on track to have more than 80 per cent of people aged 16 and over receiving one dose by the end of next month, despite being revealed as less “outstanding” than previously thought.
The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people thought to have received either a single dose or full vaccination was dramatically reduced on Monday after it emerged that a computer program used by the national immunisation register had incorrectly inflated the data.
Maria Galea was vaccinated last month by the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service.Credit:Justin McManus
Victoria was thought to be leading other states and territories in terms of Indigenous vaccination, but the adjusted data released by the Australian Immunisation Register reduced the figure for a single dose by 45 per cent.
The figure for fully vaccinated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Victoria went from 30,951 to 12,209, a drop of more than 30 per cent.
Speaking to The Age, National Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) medical advisor Dr Jason Agostino confirmed the error was due to a bug in a software program used by some GPs in regional Victoria.
Dr Agostino said the problem was identified around late May when the numbers recorded in Victoria were higher than the Commonwealth and NACCHO expected.
Sydney COVID hotspots turn cases around as three councils hit 90 per cent vaccination
By Mary Ward, Nigel Gladstone and Pallavi Singhal
Some Sydney postcodes’ daily coronavirus case figures have halved over the past fortnight, with neighbourhoods previously recording hundreds of cases a week appearing to turn their curves around as vaccination coverage exceeds 90 per cent in three councils.
Suburbs in the Cumberland and Fairfield local government areas are recording significantly fewer cases. A similar trend is being seen in Canterbury-Bankstown, although the south-west Sydney council area continues to be the source of about one in five cases across the state.
Use the tool below to see how a suburb’s cases are tracking. Be aware the scale of the graphs will change depending on which suburbs are being displayed.
There were 1127 new local coronavirus cases reported in NSW on Tuesday, the lowest daily figure since September 1.
St Vincent’s announce mandatory COVID jab policy for hospital workers
By Tammy Mills
Major healthcare provider St Vincent’s will introduce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for its workers.
While the policy, announced on Wednesday morning, won’t impact employees in NSW and Queensland who are already subject to vaccine mandates from their state health departments, Victoria was yet to announce a compulsory scheme.
St Vincent’s has made the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for staff.Credit:Scott McNaughton
St Vincent’s, which operates 16 public and private hospitals across Victoria, NSW and Queensland, said it will require all staff, volunteers and contractors to be vaccinated.
“The health and safety of every member of our team is as important as the health and safety of our patients and residents,” chief executive Toby Hall said.
Mr Hall said the outbreaks in Victoria and NSW confirmed that introducing a mandatory policy was the right move.
Vaccine uptake was already high among the workforce, Mr Hall said, with 70 per cent of St Vincent’s Health staff already fully vaccinated.
NSW Health recently announced all healthcare workers, including paramedics, must receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by September 30 in order to work, and two doses by November 30.
Vaccine mandates for the sector have also been announced by Western Australia and Queensland.
The new policy from St Vincent’s will mean its Victorian staff who have not yet been vaccinated will be forced to get the jab if they want to keep working.
“St Vincent’s Health’s vaccination policy will apply to all staff who fall outside these existing mandates. We see it as a complementary and logical step in the process of keeping our sites as safe as possible as Australia learns to live with COVID-19 long-term,” Mr Hall said.
Mr Hall said only a “very small” number of employees may be resistant or have “specific sensitivities” to the mandate.
The Australian Medical Association has been pushing for a nationally consistent compulsory vaccination for all frontline medical staff.
“We’ve said plans to reopen Australia will be a disaster unless our health sector is ready and that will mean having a fully protected medical workforce,” AMA president Dr Omar Khorshid has said previously.
Aged care workers are already subjected to a vaccine mandate.
Melbourne teachers push for mandatory jabs ahead of return to class
By Adam Carey and Madeleine Heffernan
State school teachers in inner Melbourne are pushing for mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for school staff and jabs for almost all eligible children before face-to-face learning resumes, arguing Victorian schools are not yet safe enough for the return of a million students.
The push comes as some schools receive legal threats for promoting vaccines to their school communities from parents and anti-vax groups who incorrectly claim the jabs are “highly experimental” and “proven to be neither safe nor effective”.
Princes Hill Secondary School staff members (left to right): Felicity Marlowe, Jamiel Sabbagh, Jessica Little, Lou D’Adam and Bernie Dineen have joined a push for mandatory vaccinations for school staff before children resume face-to-face lessons.Credit:Eddie Jim
In NSW, vaccinations for all school staff are mandatory from November 8. School staff have been provided with priority access to vaccines since early September.
A breakaway group of Australian Education Union delegates who represent staff at state schools in Melbourne’s inner suburbs have called on the Andrews government to mandate vaccination for all school staff before students return to on-site learning.
Premier Daniel Andrews is expected to announce a road map outlining the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, including plans for schools, on Sunday.
The move comes as Education Minister James Merlino confirmed on Tuesday authorities were investigating Fitzroy Community School’s invitation to parents to send children to classes during lockdown and dismissed its principal, Tim Berryman, as “irresponsible”.
Thirty-three teachers and students at the independent school have now tested positive to COVID-19 and the schools regulator is investigating whether it breached its legal duty to keep children safe.
NSW hospitals faced record demand in months before COVID-19 outbreak
By Lucy Carroll
NSW emergency departments were overloaded with a record number of seriously ill patients in the three months leading up to the Delta outbreak, with nearly one-third of patients not treated on time.
The state’s hospital report card for April to June this year reveals the overwhelming demand for health services before the coronavirus wave swamped the hospital system, as hospital stays, ambulance trips and elective surgery outstripped pre-pandemic levels.
The Bureau of Health Information quarterly report shows emergency department attendances hit an eleven-year high in the April to June reporting period, with 806,728 people presenting, an increase of almost 200,000 patients than the same period last year. It is a 63 per cent rise on the number of patients attending emergency departments at the same time in 2010.
“We were seeing record demand before this outbreak began, and now we’ve just pressed pause on everything but COVID,” president of the Australian Medical Association’s NSW branch Danielle McMullen said. “This looms large for us for when we emerge from the pandemic and reopen the healthcare system.”
According to the data, a record 55,171 patients left NSW emergency departments without being treated, a 21 per cent jump from the same time in 2019 and the highest of any quarter since reporting began in 2010.
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2021-09-14 23:30:20Z
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