There are more than 100 GP respiratory clinics around the country where you can make an appointment.From May 17, people over the age of 50 will be able to make appointments with a further 4,500 regular GPs approved to dispense the vaccine.Even though many higher priority aged care residents and workers and people with a disability and those aged over 70 are yet to be vaccinated national cabinet agreed to bring forward the vaccination of the over fifties.The decision came after experts ruled the Pfizer vaccine was the preferred jab for those aged under 50 because of the risk of rare blood clots. Large doses of the Pfizer vaccine will not arrive until the last quarter of the year so the strategy is to use the AstraZeneca supply as fast as possible on those it is indicated for.There are over 5.7 million Australians aged between 50 and 70 who can now make an appointment for the jab.Melbourne GP and former AMA president Dr Mukesh Haikerwal has welcomed the change which he said would reduce time consuming bureaucratic hassles involved in making sure people met complicated vaccine eligibility criteria.“It means you don’t have to go through and ask are you a carer, do you have high blood pressure, stupid stuff, now it’s just everybody over 50 is eligible. That was advocacy we brought from Victoria to that process which is really great,” he said.CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL LISTUniversity of NSW epidemiologist Professor Mary-Louise McLaws also backed the change to speed up the rollout to the over 50s even though they were less at risk of COVID-19 than those in aged care.Australia’s original template of giving the vaccine to the most vulnerable first was a good strategy if the virus was spreading in the community but it was better to vaccinate younger people who were more likely to spread the illness when there was no outbreak, she said.“I suggested that after doing frontline workers that we went for the group that are most at risk of acquiring and spreading, such as the 20 to 39 year olds because, at the time, they represented 40% of cases in Australia,” she said.We can’t vaccinate these people yet because there is not enough Pfizer vaccine to do so and “the next sensible approach is to offer the AstraZeneca to the 50 and overs, to anybody who wants it,” she said.The AstraZeneca vaccine should also be offered to people under the age of 50 who wanted it “because you don’t want to put off the early adopters, the enthusiastic group,” she said.“There is a well validated idea that there’s a third of people who will early adopt, then the next third will be later adopters and they wait for the early ones to say, you know, the water’s fine come in, and then you have those that you can’t budge,” she said.“So I think it’s a very, very good thing that we are opening up the vaccination to anybody that wants to be vaccinated,” she said.Health fund gouge: Calculate the cheapest deal in your stateChemists accused of delivering weaker flu jab
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