Covid-19 booster mandate in place for Queensland residential aged care workers from March 31

Queensland aged care workers will become the first in the state to be required to get a Covid-19 booster when a new mandate is introduced on Thursday.

A Covid-19 booster shot will be mandated for residential aged care workers across Queensland from Thursday.

In February, National Cabinet endorsed the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee recommendation to mandate Covid-19 booster vaccinations in residential aged care.

Under this order, it will now be mandatory for Queensland aged care workers to be “up to date” with their vaccinations from March 31, if they’re eligible to do so.

This means those who haven’t received two doses and a booster shot of the Covid-19 vaccination can’t return to work until they fill the criteria.

The aged care industry will be the first in Queensland to have a three-dose mandate put in place by the Federal Government.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said the government was following clinical guidance from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.

“As per ATAGI’s current advice, additional booster doses are recommended for adults aged 65 years and older; residents of aged care or disability care facilities; people aged 16 years and older with severe immunocompromise; and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 50 years and older,” she said.

Three doses of the Covid-19 vaccination have also been recommended by the AHPPC for disability workers as a condition of work or entry into recipients homes in Australia, but not yet mandated.

Infectious diseases expert Dr Paul Griffin said the third booster in vulnerable environments like aged care made “perfect sense”.

“I’m certainly not advocating for it to be similar to what we did with entertainment venues for the general population. I think that would be less justifiable in the current setting,” he said.

“But aged care makes perfect sense, that’s part of our population in which this virus can have the greatest consequences. I think the next group in which that would make sense would be frontline healthcare workers.”

Earlier this week, ATAGI also recommended an additional fourth dose be given to those most at risk of severe Covid-19 symptoms before winter.

Dr Griffin said the way the fourth shot had been recommended was understandable.

“Vulnerable groups might not have responded as well to the previous vaccines as other people would have. They’re also at very high risk of more significant consequences and it would’ve been much longer since they had their last dose,” he said.

“But we’re certainly not at the place where we’re going to contemplate that fourth winter dose for the wider population.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie has declared he doesn’t support vaccine mandates for the hospitality industry.

Mr Bleijie, who is triple-vaccinated, said current restrictions that prohibited unvaccinated people from ­entering certain venues were affecting business.

“(At the) end of last year, I expressed the concerns I had with extending the chief health officer powers,” he said.

“Now I see no reason or more reason, as I did back then ... to extend these chief health officer powers.

“Even the new chief health officer is saying we need to live with Covid.”

Mr Bleijie, speaking during the debate on the government’s proposed Bill to extend the CHO’s powers until October, said people must take responsibility for their actions.