A QLD Festival Is Doing Walk-Up Pfizer Jabs This Weekend To Help Boost The State’s Vax Rate

vaccine pop-up festival queensland savannah in the round

This weekend, a festival in Far North Queensland is going where no Australian event has gone before, and having a pop-up vaccination clinic inside the festival grounds. The future is here, and it includes vaccinations being available outside of the standard clinics, hubs, and pharmacies.

Savannah In The Round, a country music camping festival happening in the Cairns hinterland over the October long weekend, has collaborated with the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service to offer Pfizer vaccines to punters, the ABC reports.

It’s been touted as an Australian first, and people will be able to register on the day, roll up their sleeves, show their Medicare card, and get their jab before heading off to see the likes of San CiscoSneaky Sound SystemJohn Butler, and Busby Marou.

“The music industry has been promoting and supporting and pushing for vaccination broadly through its own program, #Vaxthenation, and we thought it was a good idea and happy to support it,” festival director James Dein told the ABC.

Around 12,000 people are expected to turn up to the big FNQ festival over the long weekend, so making a COVID vaccine available at the festival has the real potential to help boost the state’s lagging vaccination rates. Considering the Cairns and Hinterland regions administered just over 1000 jabs on Wednesday, having a pop-up clinic at a festival might just be the bump the state’s numbers need right now.

At the time of writing, only 45% of the state’s eligible population is fully vaccinated, and joins Western Australia in trailing behind the rest of the country in vaccination rates. Only 65% of the Queensland population has had their first jab.

If we can put a pop-up vaccine clinic at a festival up in FNQ, can we also put one outside Suncorp Stadium for the NRL grand final on Sunday, too? Now that would be a real game changer.


All adult Aussies (yep, even those of us under 40) are currently able to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Click here to see which clinics are offering it, and talk to a doctor for more info.

The best vaccine is the first one you can get, and that’ll be our ticket out of this mess.

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