SA’s Covid-19 mass vaccination hub at Wayville to close

The state’s biggest Covid-19 mass vaccination hub is set to close within weeks amid falling demand for coronavirus jabs.

South Australia’s mass Covid vaccination hubs – including the one at Wayville – are set to close their doors as demand for jabs dwindles across the state.

SA Health will move vaccine nurses back to front-line operations to help plug critic staff shortages across the state.

Health Minister Chris Picton on Monday announced the Wayville clinic will close by July 14 due to falling demand after 440 days, during which more than 4000 people a day visited at the pandemic’s height.

It’s the second time Wayville’s closure date has been changed. In April, the Government revealed it was revising the closing date for the Wayville clinic from May 31 to July 31.

The Playford mass jab hub will also close as of Monday.

A series of new, but smaller, Covid sites for fourth doses and third booster jabs will be set up instead.

A new SA Health site in the northern suburbs will open on Thursday, July 7, located at the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network’s (NALHN) GP Plus site at Elizabeth.

Smaller sites in Berri and Mount Gambier also will open.

Mr Picton said: “Moving to smaller scale or mobile clinics, with a bigger focus on GPs and pharmacies administering the Covid vaccine going forward, will importantly free up nursing staff to provide much need frontline services at our busy hospitals.

“We’re making sure we have the best utilisation of our staff and that we’re using them where they are most needed which, at the moment, is significantly in our public hospitals.

The Adelaide Showgrounds Covid-19 Vaccination Clinic. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier

Latest data shows 27 per cent of eligible adults older than 16 have failed to get their third booster Covid shot.

Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said that mass clinics were established to cater for large volumes of people.

An average of 1000 people visited every day who become vaccinated in a short space of time.

“This was to allow the borders to open and for other restrictions to ease.

“It was subsequently important to keep the clinics open during early 2022 when Omicron arrived, providing everyone access to a third dose as quickly as possible.”

“Our remaining sites and mobile clinics will continue to complement the efforts of primary care providers and we will continue to work in partnership with GPs and pharmacies to ensure continued delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine.

“Vaccination remains our best defence against Covid-19 and helps to reduce transmission of the virus at a population level in addition to providing the best individual protection against severe disease and hospitalisation.

“I strongly encourage eligible South Australians who are not up-to-date with their relevant Covid-19 vaccination dose to visit one of the available vaccination sites, or visit their local GP or pharmacy.”

The health chief said the state’s QR code systems in hospitals would be under review, but there were no further imminent changes to restrictions.

But Prof Spurrier said ditching QR codes would be contingent on strict usage of masks and current visitor limits remaining in place.

“At the moment, everyone checks in as they go through a hospital, but now we have more Covid in the community we need to check in that we are actually providing any useful information back to the hospital using those QR code check-ins,” Prof Spurrier said.

“It’s about not needing the concierge and not needing the QR code necessarily looking to the future.”

The Sunday Mail this week revealed SA Health would dump Covid concierges at hospitals across the state this week, even though its own officials predicting a peak of 5000 cases a day next month.

It means visitors to hospitals including rural and regional centres will no longer face any questioning to determine if they are a Covid-19 risk to patients and staff.

Despite the state facing a fresh spike in Covid-19 cases with the new Omicron variant, Prof Spurrier said officials were not looking at bringing back any restrictions, but urged South Australians to continue wearing masks in public spaces.

“I think South Australians understand that we can relax (public health orders) but there would be a much more complicated process involved in bringing back restrictions. That does not mean that you can’t wear your mask,” she said.

She said the jab hubs’ closures were “a time for celebration”, marking a significant achievement in SA’s vaccination rates.

“As we move on in the pandemic we do need to look at bringing vaccination back to the standard way of providing vaccines to people and that’s through your GP,” she said.

“We need to be putting resources where we need at the moment and certainly our hospitals are under enormous pressure.

“The return of nursing staff and pharmacy staff will be very welcome I’m sure.”

However, she said she also felt some sadness at the hubs’ demise.

“When you’ve done such a good piece of work there is a little bit of sadness, I think, as we say au revoir,” Prof Spurrier said.

“We’re used to having Wayville for the showground ... and I think South Australians will look forward to those good times as well.”

With the state’s flu season heading into full swing, Prof Spurrier “strongly urged” South Australians to stay inside with any cold symptoms.

“We still require isolation of cases because that does mean that we’re reducing chains of transmission in our community,” she said.

“If you have any coughs or colds, even if it’s not Covid, stay away from other people because that’s a good way of not allowing that to progress.”

South Australia recorded 2137 new cases on Monday, bringing the state’s total to 15,878 active cases with 210 cases in hospital.

Nine people are currently in ICU and none are ventilated.