coronavirus,
Aged care facilities in nine Canberra suburbs will be among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as the roll out begins next week. Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday residents and staff at aged care centres in Curtin, Farrer, Garran, Griffith, Hughes, Narrabundah, Red Hill, Stirling and Weston would be the first to receive the jab as part of phase 1A. The rollout will begin with the Pfizer vaccine and will also include the AstraZeneca vaccine from early next month. The initial priority groups include aged care and disability care residents and workers, frontline healthcare workers, and quarantine and border workers. “This week, we commence the aged care rollout as well as the work through the state Pfizer hubs,” Mr Hunt said. “There will be approximately 240 aged care facilities, if not more, that are vaccinated in week one. We are of the expectation that [there] will be at least 190 towns, and we’ll also have 16 Pfizer hubs. Those towns cover all of Australia.” Mr Hunt said the first phase, expected to take six-weeks, would eventually include every aged care centre in the country. “Right across Australia, every state and territory, rural and regional, and urban areas will be covered. It has to start somewhere and it has to finish somewhere, but this is the beginning of the process,” he said. Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy said front-line healthcare staff were at the greatest risk of being exposed to COVID-19. “At the moment that risk is quite low. If we did get transmission, these are the healthcare workers who could be in contact with someone with COVID, that includes clinical staff in emergency departments,” he said. “Lab staff doing thousands and thousands of COVID tests every day, ambulance and paramedics, people working in those special GP respiratory clinics that do COVID testing, and people working in other testing services.” Phase 1B of the vaccine rollout will include residents over 70, Indigenous Australians over 55, people who are immuno-compromised and police and emergency services. Phase 2A will focus on the over-60s, over-50s, the balance of Indigenous Australians, and then also critical service workers. Phase 2B will be the balance of the population.
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Aged care facilities in nine Canberra suburbs will be among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as the roll out begins next week.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday residents and staff at aged care centres in Curtin, Farrer, Garran, Griffith, Hughes, Narrabundah, Red Hill, Stirling and Weston would be the first to receive the jab as part of phase 1A.
The rollout will begin with the Pfizer vaccine and will also include the AstraZeneca vaccine from early next month.
The initial priority groups include aged care and disability care residents and workers, frontline healthcare workers, and quarantine and border workers.
“This week, we commence the aged care rollout as well as the work through the state Pfizer hubs,” Mr Hunt said.
“There will be approximately 240 aged care facilities, if not more, that are vaccinated in week one. We are of the expectation that [there] will be at least 190 towns, and we’ll also have 16 Pfizer hubs. Those towns cover all of Australia.”
Mr Hunt said the first phase, expected to take six-weeks, would eventually include every aged care centre in the country.
“Right across Australia, every state and territory, rural and regional, and urban areas will be covered. It has to start somewhere and it has to finish somewhere, but this is the beginning of the process,” he said.
Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy said front-line healthcare staff were at the greatest risk of being exposed to COVID-19.
“At the moment that risk is quite low. If we did get transmission, these are the healthcare workers who could be in contact with someone with COVID, that includes clinical staff in emergency departments,” he said.
“Lab staff doing thousands and thousands of COVID tests every day, ambulance and paramedics, people working in those special GP respiratory clinics that do COVID testing, and people working in other testing services.”
Phase 1B of the vaccine rollout will include residents over 70, Indigenous Australians over 55, people who are immuno-compromised and police and emergency services.
Phase 2A will focus on the over-60s, over-50s, the balance of Indigenous Australians, and then also critical service workers. Phase 2B will be the balance of the population.
Australians will start getting the coronavirus vaccine from next week.
