Vic vaccine rollout ramps up as AstraZeneca lands

OSTN Staff

Meanwhile, the state has recorded no new COVID cases for the third consecutive day, with Victoria’s active caseload dropping to 11.About 900 airline crew members, Border Force personnel, quarantine and frontline health workers rolled up their sleeves at the airport last week.Friday was the hub’s busiest day with about 200 people vaccinated. Head of Western Health’s vaccination hubs program Lisa Smith said injections would also start at the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Monday, with healthcare workers who dealt with international travellers from that and other city hospitals first in line.Sunshine Hospital’s vaccination hub would swing into action on March 4, while Werribee’s Mercy Hospital site opened on March 9. Ms Smith said that while some needle-nervous patients had “felt woozy” and fainted at the airport hub, and there had been “the odd person with a sore arm”, there had been no significant vaccine side-effects reported so far.“That may be different with the second dose because our understanding is that … you’re more likely to have a, not severe, but perhaps more than mild reaction,” she said.Scott Morrison on Sunday celebrated the touchdown of about 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Prime Minister said the first shipment marked the start of the “rollout ramp-up”, with the Oxford-developed jab to join the scheme from March 8.“We will now be able to scale up the vaccination rollout to our priority groups, including our most vulnerable Australians and to our frontline border and health workers,” he said.A further 50,000 Pfizer doses will be split up between the states over the next 24 hours. Melbourne Airport’s international departure lounge has been transformed into a mini-hospital. A team of about 30 vaccination workers is based at the hub with a doctor permanently onsite.VIRAL TRACES IN SUBURBAN SEWAGEResidents in 10 suburbs in Melbourne’s east remain on alert for COVID symptoms after virus fragments were detected in wastewater.Authorities urged residents or visitors to Lilydale, Chirnside Park, Coldstream, Kalorama, Olinda, Montrose, Mount Dandenong, Mount Evelyn, Yarra Glen and Yering with “even the mildest of symptoms” to get tested.The fragments were found in wastewater collected on February 25 with no known cases in the area.It came after fragments were detected in a sample collected on February 22 from a catchment that covers Taylors Hill, Plumpton, Hillside, Sydenham, Delahey, Caroline Springs, Burnside Heights, Kings Park, Albanvale, Burnside and Deer Park.

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