Long-awaited mass vaccination hub to open at Sydney Olympic Park tomorrow
New South Wales will open its long-awaited mass coronavirus vaccination hub tomorrow, in a bid to double the amount of jabs distributed across the state every week to more than 60,000.
Located at Sydney Olympic Park, the hub alone will have the capacity to administer 30,000 doses per week and will attempt to catch NSW up to speed with other states in its vaccination rates.
It will operate six days a week between 8am to 8pm, and will be staffed by about 300 medical personnel, the majority of them registered nurses and midwives.
For the first two weeks, the facility will only offer vaccinations to frontline health workers and those included in Phase One of the rollout.
Then, from May 24 people aged over 50 in the general population being eligible to get the jab at the site.
Chair for the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness and former Secretary of the Australian Department of Health, Jane Halton, said that she expects the new hub to be “very helpful” in accelerating the state’s vaccine rollout.
“The good thing about these hubs is that we know where they are and people can figure out how to get themselves an appointment,” she said on Today.
“I do think these hubs will be very helpful.
“We need every part of our health system working together to get these vaccines administered.”
Earlier this week, officials in Victoria said that the number of coronavirus vaccinations the state had administered doubled in the last seven days, leaving NSW to trial behind.
“People are turning up to be vaccinated in Victoria and we want to see that happen in NSW,” Ms Halton said.
“Victoria opened the mass vaccination sites to anybody over the age of 50, NSW is taking a slightly different tact in the first few weeks. They want to get the high-priority group vaccinated before they turn to the broader population.
“I am hoping it is as successful as Victoria. Not that we have competition between NSW and Victoria but Victoria is leading the charge.”
Ms Dalton has reminded the pubic amid confusion over the safety of vaccines that any risk from the jab outweighs catching the virus itself.
“I understand people are worried about their health and they hear a lot of things in the media,” she said.
“And that’s sensible. Let’s also understand the risk from COVID-19 far outweighs – far, far outweighs any small side effects from these vaccines.”
