Dan Andrews Announced Mandatory Vaccines For Essential Workers, Which Includes Footy Players

Daniel Andrews

After Gladys hung up her NSW Premier boots today, it was almost easy to forget about Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews‘ big announcement that vaccinations would be mandatory for essential workers from October 15.

This means that essential workers will need to have one dose by October 15 and two doses by November 26. That gives workers six weeks between doses, which is also the new minimum recommended time to be vaxxed with AstraZeneca (the vaccine with the longest interval time currently available in Australia).

But what essential workers does this apply to? Well it’s actually a lot (and includes AFL players too). That list consists of marriage celebrants, commercial cleaners, police, childhood education workers, bottle shop workers, rideshare drivers, public transport drivers, building and construction workers, judges, retail goods workers and heaps more. You can check out the ABC’s mega-list here.

If that’s you and you haven’t been vaccinated yet, you can still work passed October 15, as long as you’ve booked an appointment before October 22. To prove you’ve been vaccinated, you’ll need an authorised worker permit that will be carried on site.

AFL players have also been told that they need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by November 26, according to The Age. That also includes any other professional athletes that fall under authorised work.

“So I expect there’ll be a conversation, for instance, with the AFL, where the AFL will be informed on behalf of all their clubs, that if you want to go back to pre-season training in a month’s time, you will need to be double-vaxxed as an authorised worker, even when after we get to 80 per cent [of the state population fully vaccinated] and the authorisations are no longer there,” Andrews said today.

Western Bulldogs chief executive Ameet Bains said that the entire team had their first dose on Monday, before the new rules were announced.

“We didn’t necessarily mandate it but at the same time didn’t have any players who had an issue with it,” Bains said.

“Depending on where they’ll be in a number of weeks’ time, we’ll organise for them to be able to get their second dose so all of our men’s playing group will be fully vaccinated prior to the start of pre-season.”

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