MILDURA has been overlooked as a COVID-19 vaccine hub for the first-stage Pfizer rollout – but local MP Ali Cupper says there is a “clear justification” for our “low-risk zone” missing out.
“The areas with the highest need and risk will go first. There’s no conspiracy behind this,” Ms Cupper said.
Her comments came after the Victorian Government announced on Wednesday that there would be nine vaccine hubs across the state, but none in Sunraysia.
The hubs will be based in public hospitals at Albury-Wodonga Health, Austin Health, Ballarat Health, Barwon Health, Bendigo Health, Goulburn Valley Health, Latrobe Health, Monash Health and Western Health.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the first to be approved for use in Australia and is expected to be available from later this month for frontline health workers, hotel quarantine staff and aged care workers and residents.
Two doses of the vaccine will be administered at least three weeks apart and it must be stored and transported at -70C.
A Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman said this was “just the start” of the vaccine rollout program.
“There will be many further sites announced across Victoria, including local community-based GP sites, as more vaccines receive approval and the program expands into subsequent phases,” the spokeswoman said.
Ms Cupper assured local residents that “we will get the vaccine in Mildura”.
“This is a low-risk zone. This is a very finite resource at this time,” the Member for Mildura said.
“If you look at the (positive COVID-19) cases for Shepparton, they were higher than Mildura. They even had deaths.
“And of course there was that big spike in cases at Colac.
“From a statewide public health perspective, there is a clear justification for a rollout starting in certain areas that don’t include Mildura.”
It’s likely the less effective Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be made available to the majority of residents in the latter stages of the rollout.
However, Ms Cupper called for calm over what vaccine eventually arrives in Mildura.
“In terms of Australian medical science, the position of the public health officials is that for preventing serious cases of COVID, both of those vaccines are of equal efficacy,” she said.
“I don’t want to indulge this idea that it becomes an adversarial battle between these two different vaccines.
“There might be some differences in the subsets of each of them, but I just don’t think we should get hung up on it.”
Asked whether she will be getting the jab, she said: “I will be there with my GP getting the vaccine as soon as I’m deemed to be next in line.”
Mildura councillor Stefano de Pieri questioned why Mildura had missed out on being part of the first Pfizer rollout in regional Victoria.
The 66-year-old – who has had his spleen removed – is one of the many vulnerable people in the community who will not qualify for the early uptake of the Pfizer vaccine.
“It’s unfair that our frontline workers will not be getting the Pfizer vaccine,” the celebrity cook said after the hub announcement.
“What is the discriminating factor behind Mildura missing out? And on what basis did the government make the decisions on where the Pfizer vaccine would be rolled out?”
There are 21 active cases of COVID-19 in Victoria, all in hotel quarantine.
The state has now been free of local transmission of the virus for a month.
