Companies help rollout: rapid testing for CBA workers

CBA CEO Matt Comyn speaking to the media. Picture: Adam Yip

The Commonwealth Bank will begin rolling out rapid antigen testing for staff in some 30 branches in Covid hot spots in Sydney’s western suburbs next week.

The bank is also working on offering its 40,000 staff around the country Covid vaccinations at their workplace – possibly as soon as the next few weeks – once sufficient supplies are available.

The move is part of a push by corporate Australia to help accelerate the vaccine rollout in order to help re-open the economy and avoid costly lockdowns.

CBA chief executive Matt Comyn, who got his second shot of the Pfizer vaccine at Sydney’s Olympic Park on Thursday, said he believed that most of the bank’s staff were keen to get vaccinated.

The bank was working closely with the vaccine rollout task force headed by Lieutenant General Frewen to co-operate with the government’s rollout plan.

It was also offering its premises to the federal government if extra vaccine hubs were needed for the public.

The bank has 43 branches in the western Sydney area subject to the tightest lockdown restrictions following the outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19.

“We are introducing rapid antigen testing next week, starting with 30 branches, but rolling it out to 43,” Mr Comyn told The Weekend Australian

He expected staff in these branches would be undergoing the rapid antigen testing every second day.

“We see that as another measure to work in combination with the existing measures to make sure we are protecting our people,” he said.

The tests that would be used were “high quality and very accurate”.

“It is something we will trialling to give our staff additional peace of mind and comfort.”

Mr Comyn said the bank was “strongly supportive of the vaccination roll out”.

Hi comments came as Woolworths announced it would be establishing pop up vaccination clinics for workers at its key distribution centres in western Sydney.

Chief executive Brad Banducci said store teams in the five most affected local government areas in south western Sydney would also be able to secure early appointments for vaccinations at the vaccination hub in Sydney Olympic Park.

Woolworths would be providing paid leave for team members to receive their vaccinations.

Mr Banducci said the rate of vaccination in Australia was “key” to protecting the community.

“It is also essential to ensuring our teams to be able to continue to provide food to Australian communities.”

He said Woolworths was advocating for all its staff to be vaccinated as soon as possible when there was enough supply of the vaccines.

He and many of his senior team at Woolworths had now had their second shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

US online giant Amazon announced it would be offering voluntary onsite testing to workers at its fulfilment centre and delivery stations in Sydney.

The company said having onsite testing would help relieve the pressure on community testing sites.

In several local government areas in western Sydney, residents have to get tested every three days if they want to leave their area for work, often sitting in line for hours waiting for tests.

Amazon said onsite testing was available at its sites in Moorebank, Regents Park and Frenchs Forest with plans to open it up to sites in Melbourne in August.

The company was also offering a special payment of $140 to eligible workers in the fulfilment centres and delivery stations who get vaccinated.

CBA was in discussions with the company that handled the staff’s annual flu vaccinations to do Covid injections for staff and their families.

With a staff of some 40,000 people, this could mean the CBA could potentially help with the vaccination of more than 100,000 people around the country.

Mr Comyn said believed there was strong demand in the bank’s workforce to get vaccinated.

“There is a real willingness for people to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, particularly among some of our younger team members who haven’t so far qualified for the vaccines.”

The bank was not going to make vaccines compulsory but wanted to make it as easy as possible for staff to get vaccinated.

“We believe in informed consent,” he said. “It is not mandatory, but we are doing everything we can to encourage and urge our teams to get vaccinated.”

Mr Comyn was one of the business leaders who attended a meeting a few weeks ago with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and General Frewen to discuss ways business and government could work together to help the vaccine rollout.

The rollout has been constrained until recently because of a lack of supplies of the Pfizer vaccine and government recommendations that younger people did not get the AstraZeneca jab.

But Australia is now receiving additional doses of Pfizer and the government has changed its advice on AstraZeneca to encourage younger people to get it.

“We believe there will be sufficient vaccines which will become available in coming weeks (for a corporate vaccine rollout program),” Mr Comyn said.

He did not think the issue around corporate liability for any adverse reaction to staff getting a vaccine would be a barrier for the rollout.

Protection for liability for companies who gave their staff vaccines was “an outstanding issue”.

But he felt it could be resolved, in the same way as any liability for flu vaccines was handed in time to roll it out to staff.

The tightening lockdown in Sydney have already taken a heavy toll in employment intensive industries, including construction, with the industry set for a limited reopening on Saturday, and economists pointed to the national implications of the city’s outbreak.

HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham said that lockdowns would reverse the central bank’s taper plans, adding that since the Reserve Bank board last met the Sydney outbreak had worsened, extending the lockdown and weighing on activity.

“We expect GDP to contract in the third quarter, but better conditions outside New South Wales and the rollout of the vaccine should support activity later in the year and in 2022,” he said.

The RBA had planned to start tapering its quantitative easing program from mid-September but Mr Bloxham pointed to the deep impact of the lockdown in NSW.

“We expect growth to stall in he second half of 2021, before the vaccine rollout supports a pick-up in late fourth quarter 2021 and in 2022,” he said.

Mr Bloxham said that stalled growth in this half would keep the RBA dovish, but the main role for managing the economic effects would fall to state and federal fiscal policy. “We expect the RBA to back away from its previous plans to taper its QE in mid-September,” he said.