Great divide: Unvaxxed kids banned from sport and school events as Covid confusion reigns

A last-minute reprieve means unvaccinated youngsters will be allowed to play in basketball championships after previously being turned away amid jab confusion.

A leading eastern basketball club will allow unvaccinated children aged under 16 to play championship games on Sunday in a breakthough in the state child vaccination fiasco.

This means children who were turned away in tears at two venues on Saturday will now be able to play.

Greg Jeffers, chief executive of the Eltham Wildcats Basketball club, wrote to parents advising them that he had sought clarification of the state government’s Open Premises Document rules, which required facilities to restrict access to those aged over 12 who were double vaccinated.

The last-minute rules meant unvaccinated youngsters were turned away crying from their games as venues sought to meet the government guidelines.

Community sport was supposed to be exempt from the rules, but many venues with open public access felt they had no option but to turn away unvaccinated children.

“In good news for tomorrow (Sunday), the Junior Championship trials and trainings at Eltham High School and Montmorency Secondary College, will return to only those aged 16+ needing to be double vaccinated,” Mr Jeffers wrote.

“Further announcements surrounding this will hopefully be announced on Monday 22nd November.

“To be clear, everybody thought they were doing the right thing and even now, we are still needing to work with some venues on how we’re going to isolate the basketball facilities and create new entry/exit points that separate basketball people from other activities,” he wrote.

“We are pleased to allow our children on the basketball courts tomorrow and look further to making broader changes across the club, whilst still ensuring the safety of our community.”

It comes after unvaccinated children as young as 12 were reportedly being banned from attending their own year six graduations, end-of-year school events and sporting matches.

Children aged 12 to 15 have been barred from taking part in everyday activities like dance concerts and martial arts classes unless they are fully vaccinated, while retailers are scrambling to suddenly enforce vaccine checks.

Shockwaves are reverberating among parents and children who are discovering their unvaccinated children are being locked out of many venues, shops and activities due to the new government vaccination mandates, which started last Friday. They are being stopped from playing competitive sport, attending activities such as class parties at swimming centres and even sitting formal events such as ballet exams.

Many parents were unaware the vaccine mandate applied to children under 16.

Unvaxxed children are being banned from sporting and other events. Picture: AFP

One 12-year-old girl has been stopped from entering a shop to buy her year seven uniform for next year, and forced to try on items standing outside on the footpath.

Another parent of a 14-year-old stopped from attending a friends’ theatre performance said it was “terrifying to see the divide it has caused among kids living in absolute fear and judgment”.

The mother of the girl who had to try on clothes outside an eastern suburbs Bob Stewart’s uniform shop said her daughter was upset and embarrassed.

“She held up the uniform and tried on a jacket standing there and put on leggings over her shorts outside the shop,” she said. “I was livid – they’ve been through so much and they feel like they are still being punished.”

“The staff were good – I don’t blame them.”

And the mother of one student at a central Bendigo primary school has been told by school staff that her daughter will not be able to attend her year six graduation ceremony.

“She’s a school leader and will be devastated,” the mother said.

“She’s also due to go on a school camp and can’t go on many of the outings and excursions- it’s beyond rational – it’s punishment,” she said.

“It’s a real tipping point – they will have to do something about it.”

Simon Owens, registrar of basketball team Mitcham Thunder, said an unvaccinated 12-year-old boy on the autism spectrum was one of many children told at the last minute they couldn’t play sport with their peers.

“We had one team who couldn’t field a team at all because they were down three players,” he said. “The kids think they are being punished for something,” Mr Owens said.

The little boy’s mother said her son only found out last night that he couldn’t play.

“Last night he was prepped for his game eating dinner and I saw the message and broke down as I didn’t know how to tell him,” she said.

She said her son was hospitalised with mental health issues when he was eight and lockdown “brought it back”.

“We worked with therapists and one of the main things that we kept him focused on was basketball,” she said.

Other sports, including A-league soccer are also banning unvaccinated children from playing.

It’s understood the Scouts have given children until December 5 to get vaccinated.

Dance Arts Alliance Chair Mike Harrison-Lamond said the new vaccine rules have “blindsided” parents and caused “a few thousand” performing arts students to miss out on classes and concerts.

“We’ve been asking the government to provide clarification for months on whether kids aged 12 plus or 16 plus had to be fully vaccinated and they haven’t provided that,” he said.

Despite this requirement, people don’t need to be vaccinated to play indoor or outdoor community sport.

Kando Martial Arts are left questioning which students can and can't train in light of vaccination requirements. Picture: Mark Stewart

“There has been inconsistency, a lack of consultation and a lack of notice,” Mr Harrison-Lamond said.

The Dance Arts Alliance has called for the government to provide a grace period so children aged 12 to 15 have time to get vaccinated.

Speaking on radio on Friday, Covid Response Commander Jeroen Weimar said the government has been “really clear” about kids aged 12 plus having to be fully vaccinated.

Mr Weimar said parents would soon be able to upload their child’s vaccine certificate to the Services Victoria app, but could print a digital certificate in the meantime.

Australian Retailers Association CEO Paul Zahra said retailers were only given a few hours to prepare for the new restrictions, originally meant to be implemented on November 24.

People enjoying themselves out and about in the Melbourne CBD on the first weekend of further eased restrictions. Picture: Paul Jeffers

“We welcome the new freedoms, but as most restrictions ease, mandatory vaccine checks are about to commence for retailers as they head into the most important trading period of the year,” Mr Zahra said.

Kando Martial Arts chief instructor Paul Veldman said restriction updates for his industry were particularly unclear.

“There has been a lot of frustration and confusion as to whether we’re considered community sport or a gym, because it drastically changes what our rules are,” Mr Veldman said.

“Martial arts gyms have been hit so hard from the beginning, and now we’re still in the dark.”

Mr Veldman said many dojos were expecting more specific clarifications for their industry, given that retail was provided with clear rules of operation.

“All we want is to do the right thing, but we can’t work out exactly what that is.”