Phase 1B of the coronavirus vaccine rollout was due to begin locally on Monday, March 22, however the recent flooding caused a hiccup in its delivery, literally.
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Dr Simon Holliday of the Taree Respiratory Clinic said the clinic was due to get it's first delivery of syringes on Friday, March 19 but it didn't happen. He was told it couldn't get the delivery "couldn't get through".
On the Saturday of the flooding, Dr Holliday called the Aspen Medical, the organisers of the delivery of vaccines, to alert them the clinic had lost power and that delivery trucks could not get through to the area.
On Monday, the clinic was told their original order was cancelled and it would be another 10 days before they would get their first delivery, but that same day a delivery truck turned up on their doorstep with two boxes of syringes.
"Then we got a whole lot supplied on Friday, and blow me away, we got another whole lot today (Monday, March 29). So when we were told we weren't getting any for 10 days, we got two lots in two days!" Dr Holliday said.
The clinic had already hired extra nurses and administration staff to begin the rollout, but is waiting until next week to begin their vaccination program (they are having a trial run with a limited number of people this week). Dr Holliday estimates they will be doing at least 100 vaccinations a day.
The Respiratory Testing Clinic gets deep cleaned every night and every morning the nurses, doctor and some admin people will be in there going like the clappers.
- Dr Simon Holliday
"The Respiratory Testing Clinic gets deep cleaned every night and every morning the nurses, doctor and some admin people will be in there going like the clappers."
Dr Holliday said the Respiratory Clinic is there for people who don't have a GP, or whose regular GP isn't providing the vaccines. However he pleads that people book through the eligibility checker online at covid-vaccine.healthdirect.gov.au/eligibility, as clinics everywhere are still being slammed with phone calls.
"We'd have to set up an international call centre just to deal with everybody's questions. Everybody is worried about it and everybody has an opinion and a question about it. We can't give one on one for everybody for everything.
"The poor receptionists, who already have people ringing up with chest pains, needing a script for blood pressure tablets or whatever it is and can't get through, can't do their normal tasks," Dr Holliday said.
He also urges people to not wait to get vaccinated because of fear.
"This vaccine hesitancy, if everybody says 'oh there's some scary stuff, we're going to wait until everyone else has one', then when we have a cluster, which will be coming, everybody will want it and we'll have our crazy, crazy delays again.
"What we can be almost certain of is that as we relax restrictions, and everybody wants to get back to normal, COVID will be back. But hopefully what we won't see is people dying (from COVID), because people at a high risk of dying will be vaccinated, and eventually, hopefully, everyone will be vaccinated.
"The vaccination will reduce, but not stop, transmission, but it will massively slash deaths. It's all about deaths, not transmission," Dr Holliday said.
For the lastest COVID-19 vaccination updates visit www.health.gov.au/covid10-vaccines.
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