Pharmacies enter Covid-19 vaccine frontline

Health officials approve a nationwide program as outbreaks plunge four capital cities, and 11 million people, into lockdown.

A national pharmacy vaccination program which started with 49 pharmacies in Qld will expand to cover 207 sites in all states and territories except Tasmania and the ACT. Picture: AFP

Health officials have approved a nationwide Covid-19 pharmacy vaccination program following outbreaks that have plunged four capital cities, and 11 million people, into lockdown.

Under the plan, the program, which started with 49 pharmacies in regional Queensland on June 7, will expand to cover 207 sites in all states and territories except Tasmania and the ACT.

According to correspondence obtained by The Australian, officials expect the program’s expansion to begin in the Northern Territory and Western Australia on July 12 and in NSW, Victoria and South Australia a week later.

But the limited scope of the initial expansion sparked disappointment from the Pharmacy Guild, which represents the sector. The guild says the commonwealth assessed almost 4000 chemists as suitable.

Business groups are also offering to help accelerate the inoculation effort, urging the federal government to allow them to promote and administer vaccines in workplaces.

The Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Industry Group have also called on the government to outline how the country will shift from restrictions.

Brisbane became the latest state capital to go into a snap lockdown on Tuesday afternoon after two new cases of community transmission were detected. Perth followed Darwin and Sydney into lockdown on Monday evening.

There were 25 locally acquired Covid-19 cases reported on Wednesday – 19 in NSW – and more than 127,000 tests undertaken.

Annastacia Palaszczuk, announcing a three-day lockdown that covers Brisbane, southeast Queensland, Townsville, Palm ­Island and Magnetic Island, said the number of arrivals from ­overseas needed “a massive ­reduction”.

But the case of most concern in Queensland was that of an unvaccinated hospital receptionist who had not been overseas but who travelled to the state’s north while infectious.

 

“Until that time that the large proportion of the Queensland public are vaccinated, we should massively reduce the number of returning Australians,” the Queensland Premier said.

“Permission to enter the country should be for “genuine hardship reasons … at the moment there is a large number of exemptions that are being given for people to come in here rather than returning Australians”.

In NSW, Gladys Berejiklian nominated 80 per cent as the vaccination threshold to hit before discussing permanent relaxation of Covid-19 health measures.

“We have surpassed 2 million jabs,” the Premier said.

“I have been outspoken in relation to what NSW thinks needs to happen to expedite the vaccine rollout and make sure when the extra doses arrive later in the year, that everybody who wants the jab has access to it.”

Despite this, figures obtained by The Australian show only 20 chemists will be part of the expanded pharmacy vaccination program when it rolls out in NSW from July 19, when more than 1250 were approved by the commonwealth. Victoria will activate six pharmacies out of 511 that were approved.

Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey said there appeared to be bias and “snobbery” among health officials relating to pharmacy vaccinations.

“Instead of being patient-­centric, it’s GP-centric,” Mr Twomey said.

“We never had this approach when we had the rollout of the (vaccine to the) GPs. The commonwealth government just activated all the general practices.

“This is not rocket science for us. This is supply-chain logistics and community pharmacies do this every day. We order medications, we get them shipped, and we meet the orders of prescriptions that come before us.”

Sixty-eight South Australian pharmacies have been “on­boarded” to the vaccination program, along with 49 in WA and 15 in the NT. The Health Department, in a statement on Tuesday, said: “Community pharmacy will play an important role in the ramp up of the COVID-19 vaccine in the second half of the year.

“As additional vaccine supply is delivered over the coming months, additional community pharmacies will be brought on line to support an enhanced ­primary care rollout to ensure the broadest possible coverage for the community.”

Innes Willox, chief executive of national employer association Ai Group.

Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox said the vaccination effort would be accelerated if the federal government were to extend the offer of indemnity from GPs to businesses.

Scott Morrison on Monday ­announced the commonwealth would indemnify GPs as part of a push to speed up the delivery of AstraZeneca vaccine, particularly to those under 40.

“We also need to change tack and look at ramping up the vaccine program by being open to new approaches such as allowing employers to effectively turn their workplaces into vaccination centres,” Mr Willox said.

“We do this with flu vaccines very successfully. Surely the vaccine rollout has now moved to a more mature phase and the time has come to allow and trust ­experienced nurses to administer the vaccine without a doctor looking over their shoulder.

“For this pivot to happen ­businesses need proper and ­clearly ­defined indemnity to ­protect against the risk of an ­employee ­experiencing serious adverse ­reactions.”

ACCI chief executive Jenny Lambert added: “There is an ­opportunity to do more ­promotion of trying to get as many jabs into arms as we can. For many years businesses have played a role in having providers come into workplaces and provide the flu jab.”

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Ms Lambert urged the ­government to provide a clearer plan on the pathway to living with Covid-19, declaring there was growing frustration within ­business. “We would definitely prefer to have more definitive statements about what the stages are,” she said. “There is a sense we are going backwards.”

BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott said the cumulative effect of shutdowns was a “mortal blow” for some business owners. She called for incentives for vaccinated people and a “conversation” about the need for mandatory vaccinations to be extended to workers in more industries than the aged care sector.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said 5.95 million first-dose ­vaccinations had been delivered – with 7.1 per cent of Australians fully vaccinated.

Mr Hunt said 80 per cent of people who had arrived in Australia from overseas were permanent residents or their family.

Additional reporting: Lydia Lynch