NSW Health official Susan Pearce, who is responsible for overseeing the state’s COVID vaccine rollout, made a cameo at the 11am daily press conference to deliver some good news on how we’re tracking.
The update comes after NSW recorded 452 local COVID-19 cases and one death overnight. Pearce, who is the Deputy Secretary of the Patient Experience and System Performance Division at NSW Health, said the challenge is to administer the 530,000 extra jabs bought from Poland to people in hotspot areas.
“It was an absolute delight to receive the news on Sunday about the increased vaccinations for New South Wales, and now the job is ahead of us to get it out there,” Pearce said.
She explained that clinics in Western Sydney have been ramped up so that those extra doses can be administered in the next two-and-a-half weeks.
This vaccine blitz is expected to administer enough doses to cover everyone aged 16 to 39 in those hotspot LGAs.
“To do this obviously is a mammoth effort on behalf of our districts,” Pearce added
“Can I say thank you to the healthcare workers for the work that they’re doing? They have been working day and night to be able to announce this today.
“We are throwing absolutely everything we’ve got at getting those doses into arms over the next 2.5 weeks.”
From the sounds of things, health authorities in NSW appear to finally be doing the kinds of outreach people have been calling for over the past few months.
“To give you an indication at the moment, the south-western Sydney, Western Sydney and Sydney local health districts are out there every day doing mobile clinics at mosques, for refugees, for homeless people, for people in disability centres, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups, mental health units, the Sudanese community and the Pasifika community,” Pearce said.
“We’re throwing every single thing we’ve got at getting these vaccines out quickly. We’re excited by the opportunity, a little daunted by it, but I’ve got every confidence we can do it in that time frame.”
The endgame is to get 70%, and then 80%, of the whole state fully-vaxxed. Right roughly 52% of adults in NSW have had their first dose.
“Life will be much freer than what it is today once we get to 70% and 80%,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
“It doesn’t mean we’ll be completely free. It doesn’t mean that we will let’s let the virus be rampant in the community no matter our number of cases, but it will be freer than it is today. I really want to stress that point.”
All adult Aussies (yep, even if those of us under 40) are currently able to get the safe and effective AstraZeneca vaccine through a GP. Click here to see which clinics are offering it, and talk to a doctor to see if it’s right for you.
Alternatively, you can triple-check to see if you’re eligible for the Pfizer vaccine here.
The best vaccine is the first one you can get, and that’ll be our ticket out of this mess.
