Sunshine Coast medical professionals urge residents to get vaccinated to prevent Sydney outbreaks and lockdowns

Medical professionals have warned the Sunshine Coast could plunge into more lockdowns if vaccination don’t rise significantly.

Sunshine Coast medical professionals have warned the region could plunge into lockdowns similar to the one currently gripping Sydney unless Covid-19 vaccination rates begin to lift.

Australian Medical Association Sunshine Coast president Dr Roger Faint said his Buderim practice was only administering about 10 jabs a day and demand had dropped off.

It comes after New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian extended the state’s lockdown for another fortnight.

The state recorded 97 new cases of the virus overnight on Tuesday.

The new cases take the Sydney outbreak’s total to 864 cases.

According to Queensland Health’s website, there have been nearly 70,000 people on the Sunshine Coast who have received the vaccine, which equates to about 17 per cent of the population.

The data showed there were 957 jabs administered at Sunshine Coast University and Nambour hospitals on Tuesday, July 13, taking the region’s total to 68,168.

Dr Roger Faint says the region’s vaccination numbers are still too low.

Dr Faint said the numbers were too low despite 40,000 jabs being rolled out on the Sunshine Coast in the past six weeks.

He said people were holding out for the Pfizer jab to become available.

“There’s this misguided idea that they can hang on but if we don’t get vaccination rates up what’s happened in Sydney will easily happen here,” Dr Faint said.

“It won’t take much to overwhelm our services, especially if it’s the Delta variant of the virus.

“We need to get cracking.”

The region last went into a three-day lockdown on June 30.

Dr Faint, who received his second AstraZeneca jab earlier this week, said based on current vaccination rates he did not expect things to improve for a few months.

He urged those eligible to get the vaccine.

“People need to know they won’t be able to fly, won’t be back to normal unless they are vaccinated,” Dr Faint said.

“But there’s far less booking than there should be.”

Noosa-based physician Dr Ian Norton previously told the Daily in June that pumping up vaccination numbers was a “huge incentive” to protect the region and prevent further lockdowns.

Dr Norton said at the time that Australia was in a race to get the country fully vaccinated.

The Coast’s vaccination numbers can be compared to Townsville (nearly 40,000), the Gold Coast (more than 80,000), the Darling Downs (25,000) and Cairns (50,000).

Brisbane’s Metro North and South areas have collectively rolled out almost 300,000 vaccinations.

Originally published as Sunshine Coast medical professionals urge residents to get vaccinated to prevent Sydney outbreaks and lockdowns