NSW COVID vaccine rollout: Health workers reject AstraZeneca jab

Health workers in NSW are “voting with their feet” and failing to show up to COVID vaccination appointments due to clotting risks.

Health workers in NSW are abandoning the AstraZeneca jab, with an 80 per cent cancellation for vaccine appointments since federal government advice recommended people under 50 get the Pfizer shot instead.

The revelations came as Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced a mass vaccination hub at Olympic Park – with capacity to administer both COVID vaccines – would be up and running by mid-May.

Ms Berejiklian said the NSW government is expecting to receive an increased number of Pfizer doses in the next three to four weeks.

“Given recent health advice regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine, there’s no doubt there’ll be a greater reliance on the Pfizer vaccine,” she said.

The Premier said the mass vaccination hub at Olympic Park will be “required” to get through all the extra Pfizer doses the state government is expecting to receive.

The hub will be capable of vaccinating 30,000 people a week. It will be staffed by 300 people.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard at the NSW vaccination centre which is under construction. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said “all but about 50 to 60,000” of the 140,000 health staff in NSW have already been vaccinated.

However, the recommendation that people under 50 get the Pfizer jab is slowing down the rollout.

In a two-week period that incorporated the Prime Minister’s April 8 announcement about the medical advice, NSW Health experienced an 80 per cent drop in healthcare workers turning up for vaccine appointments.

“Health staff have voted with their feet at the present time and (we’ve) seen a 70 to 80% reduction (in appointments),” Mr Hazzard said on Thursday.

The Health Minister also suggested NSW residents feel less urgency to get the vaccine because of the state government’s success in managing the virus, compared to a “rawness of scar tissue” in Victoria following that state’s second COVID wave.

“People in Victoria are keener to have the vaccine currently, because they know that once the borders open, there are some real issues,” Mr Hazzard said.

Meanwhile, investigations continue into potential COVID transmission inside the Mercure Hotel on George Street, after infections in three travellers were genomically linked.

The cases have the more transmissible South African strain.

The three cases stayed at Mercure Sydney on George Street. Picture: Supplied

There were 40 other travellers who were staying on the same floor of the hotel at the time, and 36 have been contacted by NSW Health.

“A number have gone into other states and territories and those states and territories have been alerted,” chief health officer Kerry Chant said.

The travellers have been directed to get a test and isolate for 14 days since they left quarantine.

It comes after three people contracted COVID at the Adina Apartments Hotel at Town Hall.

Dr Chant said investigations into those cases indicated potential airborne transmission that “could have occurred through the corridor and into that adjacent room”.

Meanwhile, the Premier has indicated she would not support a ban on Australians returning from India, amid a spike in that country’s COVID rates.

“ I don’t think it’s healthy to identify one nation ahead of others,” she said.

“The rates of infection go up and down across Europe, across North America, and we just have to make sure our quarantine system is as foolproof as possible.”