Covid-19: Defence teams rush to jab Indigenous

Defence personnel have been deployed to western NSW to help the state’s health officials struggling to stop the rapid spread of Covid-19 through vulnerable Indigenous communities.

Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt on Tuesday said the low take-up of the vaccine was partly by ‘choice’. Picture: Gary Ramage

Defence personnel have been deployed to western NSW to help the state’s health officials struggling to stop the rapid spread of Covid-19 through vulnerable Indigenous communities.

About 60 per cent of the 116 cases recorded in the region are Indigenous people; 40 per cent of infections are among people aged between 10 and 19.

The spread of the virus across Dubbo and Walgett and into the regional centres of Mudgee, Gilgandra, Narromine and Bourke has alarmed state and federal officials. The first case was recorded just one week ago, with 17 new infections reported on Tuesday.

NSW Health officials have refused repeatedly to provide details of the number of hospital beds in Dubbo, the centre of the outbreak. Only two people had been hospitalised with Covid-19 on Tuesday, officials said.

Across the state, there were 452 Covid-19 infections reported on Tuesday, with one new death – a woman in her 80s. There are 447 Covid-19 patients in hospital, with 69 in intensive care units.

The spread of the virus in Sydney is so extensive that NSW Health has now stopped publishing all but the highest-risk exposure sites, citing their volume.

Brendan Cutmore, Western NSW Local Health District director of Aboriginal health and wellbeing, said the outbreak in the region was difficult for Indigenous communities whose instincts were to stick together in a crisis.

“We would normally gather together and share our resources and we would normally provide that kind of assistance face to face but right now it is incredibly important that we stay in our own homes,” he said. “Your job is to stay in your place of residence and try to stay in touch with your family members in another way.”

Pat Turner, head of Australia’s network of Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations, said she was relieved the region was receiving commonwealth support. The lack of Pfizer vaccines had held up Aboriginal community inoculations, Ms Turner said on Tuesday.

She said she felt for parents who were now trying to keep their children indoors, especially if they lived in overcrowded houses.

“It is a big ask for those parents to keep kids locked up – it’s going to be very hard but I implore them to do their best on that,” she said.

Despite being a priority group in the federal government’s vaccination program, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have some of the lowest rates of inoculation in any group across the country.

About 9 per cent of the Indigenous population over 16 in the NSW west has been fully vaccinated, compared with more than 25 per cent of all Australians.

This is in part because Aboriginal medical services across Australia were supplied with ­AstraZeneca before the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation issued advice in April that Pfizer was preferred for under 50s. The advice was a crisis for remote clinics because the mean age of an Indigenous person in Australia is 23. It was not until late June that adequate supplies of Pfizer were secured for remote and regional vaccinations.

Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt on Tuesday said the low take-up of the vaccine was partly by “choice”.

“Some people have made ­choices because they’ve become fearful of adverse effects,” he said.

“But they are now focusing on getting vaccinated. That’s why the vaccination rates have increased substantially. We’re seeing this right across the country.”

Mr Wyatt said some communities had also “thought they would be fairly distant from what was happening in capital cities”.

“There is now a realisation that this virus can travel anywhere because of movement of people,” he said. “That’s why we’re seeing the stepping up.”

Five Australian Defence Force vaccination teams are being dispatched to western NSW with medics, nurses and logisticians to assist with the vaccine program.

Aboriginal health clinics have been steadily increasing the number of vaccinations each week.

By Monday, 169,449 Indigenous people over the age of 16 – or 29.3 per cent of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population aged over 16 – had received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and 86,793 Indigenous Australians – or 14.9 per cent of the Indigenous population aged over 16 – had received a second dose.

Additional reporting: Ellie Dudley