CORONAVIRUS —
VACCINATIONS
418. Mr S.A. MILLMAN to the Minister for Health:
I
refer to the state government's efforts in getting as many eligible Western
Australians vaccinated as quickly as possible. Can the minister update
the house on the expansion of the COVID-19 vaccination program to 16 to
29-year-olds; and can the minister update the house on the new vaccination
clinic at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre?
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
Before I answer the question, on
behalf of the member for Fremantle, I acknowledge Mattie Turnbull and the
Curtin University planning students, who are in the gallery today.
I would like to thank the member
for the question. It is a very important one because we are not safe until we
are all safe. It is so important that people get the message: roll up for WA,
make sure you get yourself vaccinated and make sure you protect yourself, your
family and your community. We are absolutely obsessed about the idea that we
need to increase the number of people in Western Australia who have been
vaccinated. That is why we recently opened up vaccine eligibility to 16 to
29-year-olds. Now everyone between the ages of 16 and 59 years can get a Pfizer vaccine, while those aged 60 years and
over can get the AstraZeneca vaccine, in an effort to make sure that we
get everyone in Western Australia vaccinated as soon as possible. Following our
announcement on Monday morning, a whopping
72 163 people between the ages of 16 and 29 booked their vaccinations, which is
an outstanding result. There are now 112 000 people from that cohort
either booked in for their vaccination or already vaccinated. That is a great
outcome and really speaks volumes for the commitment of these young people to
make sure that they do the right thing and get themselves vaccinated.
We are also vaccinating
individuals aged 12 years and over who have underlying medical conditions.
Those who live in remote communities or are Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people are also eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The expanded
eligibility means that more than two million Western Australians are now
eligible to be vaccinated.
Our objective is to vaccinate about
260 000 people during the blitz. As a result of the 70 000 extra vaccines we received from the Polish government via the
commonwealth government, we are extending the blitz by another week. We will have 95 000 vaccines in the first week, 95
000 in the second week and about 70 000 in the third week. We need to make sure that we get everyone vaccinated.
As part of that program, yesterday we opened a new vaccination centre at
the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. It will open from 8.30 am to 6.00 pm
seven days a week as part of the state government's vaccination blitz,
and from 30 August, the clinic will open from 8.30 am to 5.00 pm Monday through Saturday. We are also opening a new
clinic at Centrepoint Midland shopping centre on 6 September.
More
than 1.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have now been administered. We need to
make sure that we continue to keep
the pressure on to get everyone vaccinated. There is no other way out of this:
there is no plan B; there is only plan V. Get yourself vaccinated, roll
up for WA, protect yourself, protect your family and protect the community.