Frantic race to vaccinate as Indigenous township of Walgett exposed

Health authorities have rushed vaccines to the remote NSW town of Walgett as a Covid case has increased fears for the town’s Indigenous community.

An almost deserted main street in Walgett on Thursday. Picture: ABC

Health authorities have rushed vaccines to the remote NSW town of Walgett as a Covid case has increased fears for the town’s Indigenous community in a region that has the state’s lowest level of inoculation against the virus.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard expressed concern the health system might struggle to cope with a Covid outbreak in the town, which is in the Far West and Orana region where only 36.9 per cent of over-15s have had one jab and 16.3 per cent have had both.

The virus arrived in the town with an unsuspecting carrier who had returned home after a run-in with the law in the nearby regional centre of Dubbo, about three hours drive away.

While it remains unclear how the 27-year-old contracted the pathogen, contact tracers know he was already infectious by the time he was arrested in Dubbo last Saturday and transported to Bathurst, almost 200km further south, where he spent the weekend locked up in the city’s jail.

There were grave concerns the man may have brought the disease home to Walgett after being released on bail on Monday, with the town’s Aboriginal community considered among the most at-risk in the state given the low immunisation rate and a high incidence of comorbidities.

Health officials scrambled to rush 1200 doses of Pfizer to the township on Thursday, with a new vaccination hub to open on Friday and promises of another 3000 jabs to arrive in the coming days.

The potential outbreak came to light after the man, who was ­asymptomatic, underwent a Covid test as part of the standard screening procedure for all new inmates at Bathurst Correctional Centre.

He was swabbed on arrival on Saturday, but the results were only returned four days later on Wednesday, and by then he was back in Walgett and had been active in the community for almost 48 hours.

The revelation prompted snap lockdowns across large swathes of northwestern NSW, with Bogan, Bourke, Brewarrina, Coonamble, Gilgandra, Narromine, Walgett and Warren all locked down for at least the next week. Chief medical officer Paul Kelly said the commonwealth was working with NSW Health and the Walgett ­Aboriginal Medical Service to ensure everything possible was being done to prevent it from spreading into the Indigenous population.

The Bathurst jail also went into a “precautionary lockdown” that remained in place late Thursday, even though the close contacts of the infected inmate had returned negative Covid tests.

While it is understood the inmate was picked up in Bathurst by a friend before being driven home in a private vehicle, Barwon MP Roy Butler said health officials were still in the process of tracing all his close contacts. It appeared they had stopped briefly in Dubbo.

“(The man) didn’t know he was infectious while he was travelling to Walgett and he was already home by the time the positive ­result got back and had been out and about socialising completely unrestricted,” Mr Butler said.

“It’s normal in a lot of my communities for people to gather in large numbers outside to socialise – that part of how our Aboriginal communities work – and it’s really concerning because he was very active in the community, not knowing he was positive.”

More than 40 per cent of Walgett’s population identify as Aboriginal, and Mr Butler expressed grave concerns about the devastating impact a coronavirus outbreak would have on them.

“Walgett has really strong Aboriginal communities but they’re extremely vulnerable and already have a large number of comorbidities and health complications and we simply don’t have the medical services to be able to look after them if something goes awry,” he said. “The nearest base hospital with a full intensive care unit and everything else you need is three hours away in Dubbo.

“We knew it was likely to happen at some stage that the virus had come to come to some of these towns but we’re starting behind the eight ball a little bit because of the federal procurement issues with the vaccines, which means that some parts of my electorate have among the lowest in the state. And that’s obviously an additional layer of risk to us.”

Premier Gladys Berejiklian maintained a vaccine shortage in the region was not the result of doses being redeployed to the state’s Covid-ravaged capital but Mr Butler remained sceptical.

“It all depends who you listen to. There’s a stack of people in Walgett who were booked in to get the vaccination only for them to have their appointments unexpectedly cancelled,” he said.

Walgett mayor Ian Woodcock called for a crackdown on non-­essential workers travelling to the region – particularly from Sydney – to prevent further outbreaks.