Booster and child vaccination rates ‘nowhere near’ high enough, GV Health CEO says

“That's a really low number. And it's something that we're working really hard to address across our area,” Mr Sharp said.

Across Victoria, the third-dose vaccination rate is 35 per cent — three percentage points higher than GV Health’s numbers.

“And similarly, we have only 29 per cent of children aged five to 11 who have come forward and got their vaccinations,” Mr Sharp said.

The numbers cited above are based on data from Sunday, January 23.

Access to vaccines improving

Walk-in appointments were available to children at Shepparton Showgrounds’ McIntosh Centre on Wednesday, January 26, and Mr Sharp said it was a “really great success”.

“We had over 400 people vaccinated during the course of that day and that was mainly children in the five to 11 age group,” he said.

On Saturday the McIntosh Centre hub will open from 9am to 4pm.

Mr Sharp said appointments were available for Saturday, and it was “very likely” walk-ins for young children and adults would be offered.

“As we're getting more staff now back into the vax program, we are increasing our capacity,” he said.

“In the coming weeks we'll be running Tuesday evening sessions, just to try and make it as easy as possible for people to come forward and be vaccinated.”

The Australian Department of Health advises that vaccination can be deferred for up to four months or those who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection, as past infection reduces the chance of reinfection for at least this amount of time. However there is no requirement to delay vaccination.

If a patient tests positive for COVID-19 between their first and second doses, or between their second and booster dose, the patient should delay the next dose until they have recovered from the acute illness.

People with prolonged symptoms from COVID-19 beyond four months should be vaccinated on a case-by-case basis.

Community urged not to postpone tests

Infected people were still delaying getting tested after the onset of symptoms, Mr Sharp said, and he urged people to get tested urgently rather than wait a few days.

“No matter how mild they are, please come forward and be tested straight away.”

Active case numbers had marginally declined across the Goulburn Valley local public health unit area, however hospitalisations remained at “a fairly constant level” of between 15 to 20 cases, Mr Sharp said.

On Thursday morning there were 17 people admitted with COVID-19 at GV Health and two of those people were in ICU, one of whom was on a ventilator.

Code Brown continues

There were 84 GV Health staff furloughed as of Wednesday, January 26, and Mr Sharp said the hospital service was continuing to see operational pressures across all essential critical services.

“Our emergency department, operating theatre, maternity services, and of course our wards and our COVID wards,” he said.

“So although the case numbers in the community are starting to decline and that's certainly our experience — that's the case statewide — we are still seeing it be quite busy in terms of hospitalisations for people with COVID and people needing care and treatment who don't have COVID.

“Please bear in mind as well, we continue to operate under the Code Brown that's in place right across Victoria.”

Mr Sharp said GV Health continued to redirect and redeploy staff to critical areas.

“But of course if you do have a life-threatening emergency, our ED (emergency department) will always be there in that circumstance,” he said.

He urged the community to contact a general practitioner or nurse-on-call as a starting point for less urgent health problems.

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