Medical staff in general from podiatrists and dentists to university students are being given the power to administer COVID-19 jabs so as to push through Victoria’s rollout with training set to begin today.
The additional workforce will help supercharge the state’s vaccination campaign to meet the state’s 70 per cent single-dose target by 19 September, four days before current modelling. The target will allow the state’s 5km target to expand to 10km.
A vaccination blitz starts this week with Year 12 students and teachers able to book priority appointments at vaccination clinics via a dedicated hotline set to be announced on Friday. The blitz will run from Tuesday, 7 September, through to 17 September.
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The phoneline is for Year 12 students, teachers VCE exam supervisors for priority bookings, reports the Herald Sun.
A live webinar is being hosted for year 12 students and their families today from 4-5pm to cover topics such as vaccine safety and other guidelines.
No Jab, no Job
On 28 June, Australia’s National Cabinet agreed to make vaccination against COVID-19 mandatory for residential aged care workers.
The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) has become the first cultural institution in Australia to mandate the vaccine against COVID-19. In a memo issued to staff on Thursday, Mona’s owner David Walsh compelled employees of the Tasmanian cultural institution to get the jab if they wanted to keep their jobs.
“Our staff don’t have the right to trample on the rights of their colleagues,” Mr Walsh wrote in the memo also published to Mona’s blog.
“A few staff might think we are trampling on their rights, but the one right they think we are restricting doesn’t exist.
“When you go to work unvaccinated there’s a small chance you’ll get COVID and an even smaller chance you’ll die. But each time you take that risk there is a small chance you’ll kill someone else … that’s not okay.”
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Walsh’s post attracted plenty of comments on Thursday, both supportive and critical. It also sparked renewed argument on whether compulsory vaccination is illegal discrimination, or an infringement of people’s human rights.
The decision comes two weeks after the announcement of a “no jab, no jive” policy for guests, artists, crew members and volunteers of the 2022 Big Red Bash near Birdsville and Mundi Mundi Bash near Broken Hill, events organised by the Outback Festival Group.