VACCINE TO ROLL OUT FROM MONDAYHospital and healthcare workers will be the first to be vaccinated in Victoria from Monday.Mr Foley said high-risk workers in quarantine hotels and “access points”, such as airports and ports, would also be first in line for the Pfizer vaccine. Vaccination hubs will administer the vaccine at locations across the state, including Austin Health, Monash Health and Western Health. Alfred Health will also assist Monash Health. “We are there, ready to go,” Mr Foley said. “The vaccination is an important milestone that we all welcome,” he said.The Melbourne Airport vaccine facility will be solely for those working airside and has been set up by Western Health.Monash Health will run a number of vaccine hubs at Monash Health and Sunshine. Hotel quarantine workers will also be vaccinated on the job, Mr Weimar said. Mr Foley said existing coronavirus testing sites could not be “flipped” into vaccination hubs because they were not equipped with the adequate equipment to carry out the jabs.However, more suburban locations will be added to the rollout once more vaccines become available from the federal government. “Those much more community-based sites are more likely to come into play,” he said. More than 5000 general practitioners have already expressed their interest in helping to administer the vaccines to the community, Mr Foley said. “We will see a substantial growth in the number of vaccination sites.” Mr Foley said the arrival of the vaccines and equipment was “imminent” as the TGA carries out quality assurance program on the shipment that arrived on Wednesday. He said the state of emergency needed to be extended to protect Victoria from further outbreaks stemming from hotel quarantine.Mr Foley said should the state of emergency extension not pass in parliament, other states would most likely close themselves off from Victoria if cases continued to emerge. “This important legislation needs to pass,” he said.
Victorian Commander of Testing Jeroen Weimar says coronavirus has been detected in wastewater in a number of suburbs and has asked Victorian’s to be on the lookout for symptoms
VIRUS FOUND IN WASTEWATERMeanwhile, health authorities are on high alert after coronavirus fragments were found in sewage in an area where there are no active cases.Wastewater testing has revealed viral fragments of COVID-19 in Wantirna South and Boronia on February 15 and Carrum Downs, Langwarrin, St Kilda, Caulfield and Caulfield North on February 16.Those suburbs are east and southeast of the CBD, whereas all active cases reside in the western suburbs apart from one person in Greater Dandenong.Anyone who has any symptoms of COVID-19 and lives in or has visited the areas below during the following times has been urged to get tested:• Wantirna South or Boronia from February 13 to 15, including parts of Bayswater, Ferntree Gully, Knoxfield and Tremont;• Carrum Downs or Langwarrin from February 13 to 16, including parts of Skye;• St Kilda East or Caulfield North from February 13 to 16, including parts of Balaclava, Caulfield and Elsternwick.
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MAJOR OUTBREAK WOULD DIVERT VACCINESVital vaccines will be diverted to areas suffering major COVID-19 outbreaks under the rollout of jabs due to start on Monday.Australia’s vaccine task force has developed a “ring vaccination” strategy to re-route doses to protect vulnerable people in outbreak areas, if there was a substantial risk posed by community transmission. The rollout — to begin on Monday — will see initial hubs opened at four major Victorian health facilities to vaccinate all hotel quarantine workers in three weeks. At least 240 aged-care facilities will also get a share of the available Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines next week as the rollout begins in 190 Australian towns and suburbs. Health Minister Greg Hunt said the life-saving vaccines would be taken directly to elderly people living in nursing homes across Victoria, including in Ocean Grove, Nunawading and Bendigo.
“Right across Australia, every state and territory, rural and regional, and urban areas will be covered,” Mr Hunt said. Queenscliffe mayor Ross Ebbels welcomed the news that the rollout would start with Victoria’s most elderly community.“People have really been waiting for it, and because of our age demographic, we are a vulnerable community,” Mr Ebbels said.Authorities are aiming to vaccinate all 678,000 people in phase 1A of the rollout, including vulnerable Australians and frontline workers, within six weeks. Vaccinations will be recorded online in the Australian Immunisation Register and will be accessible through Medicare for proof, both online and in a hard copy. More than 142,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine, almost double the amount initially expected, arrived from Europe on Monday. The cargo was taken to a secure location, where it has been undergoing batch testing and quality assessment.
Victoria will receive about 11,000 doses a week for the first four weeks. “First up is the international quarantine border (staff), hotel quarantine workers, airport workers, those people that are most at risk,” Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said. “This is about using the first available tranches of the vaccine to make sure we keep the transmission as low, as close to zero, as we possibly can.”
COVID-19 vaccine rollout
Mr Hunt on Thursday also confirmed the federal government’s order for special syringes that are able to get six doses rather than five out of a vaccine vial had not arrived. But Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy said the syringes available were “absolutely fine” for now. He said if an outbreak was detected, the AHPPC will have the power to order a vaccination blitz around it to keep vulnerable Australians safe. “If they (the AHPPC) recommended a ring vaccination process for a group of people or an area then we would undertake that,” Prof Murphy said. He said the rollout was the biggest and most complex task “in the history of the nation”. “We know there will be bumps in the road as we commence this task, unanticipated problems which we will solve together with our partners,” he said. Mass vaccination sites will be set up by state governments in major cities and big regional areas when there is sufficient vaccine stock available.
TOWNS/SUBURBS WHERE AGED-CARE RESIDENTS WILL BE VACCINATED WEEK 1
EASTERN SUBURBS ON ALERTHealth officials issued an alert on Thursday night for several Melbourne suburbs after detecting coronavirus fragments in wastewater.The Department of Health said there were multiple areas of concern where anyone with COVID-19 symptoms was urged to get tested.These include people who live in or have visited:– Wantirna South, Boronia, Bayswater, Ferntree Gully, Knoxfield and Tremont between February 13 – 15– Carrum Downs, Langwarrin and Skye between February 13 – 16– St Kilda East, Caulfield, Caulfield North, Balaclava and Elsternwick between February 13 – 16Wastewater samples were being collected from 60 sites across Victoria.The Department said viral fragments in wastewater could be due to an active infectious case but could also be due to someone who has recovered from coronavirus and is continuing to shed the virus.
MASK RULES TIPPED TO LIFT SOONThe state government has hinted the tough mask rules that remain in place after Victoria’s snap lockdown could be lifted as early as next week.The restriction requiring Victorians to wear a mask at all times while outside the house — both indoors and outdoors — was reintroduced at the start of the five-day lockdown last Friday.And while most restrictions were eased overnight, masks are still required to be worn indoors and outdoors where 1.5m social distancing cannot take place.Health Minister Martin Foley on Thursday said the coronavirus orders were always subject to review and would be looked at again on February 26.“At the moment we’re planning to look at (masks) Friday of next week. If circumstances change between now and then, of course, the measures will be changed,” he said.While announcing the easing of restrictions on Wednesday, Premier Daniel Andrews said masks continued to be a “big part” of the state’s defence.PLAN FOR WORKERS TO LIVE ON-SITEQuarantine workers could live on-site or work under a fly-in-fly-out arrangement under a plan to move the program from city hotels.Daniel Andrews said on Thursday he had been issued advice from a number of companies about the possibility of building a dedicated quarantine facility.But he would not say whether he had met with Lindsay Fox to discuss basing a new facility at his Avalon Airport.The Premier flagged the site as a potential option to largely replace the state’s hotel quarantine program, with talks between the government and airport operators underway.The billionaire trucking magnate publicly supported the Premier amid Victoria’s extended lockdown last year.“Daniel Andrews has had the balls to carry out all the things that he said he was going to do,” Mr Fox said at the time. “Now anyone else would have cracked and weakened a long time ago. I’m not Labor, I’m not Liberal, I’m Australian.”The government said the new quarantine “village” — modelled off the Howard Springs facility near Darwin — would reduce the risk of the virus spreading with travellers to be housed in single-storey “cabins” with better ventilation than in hotels.
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