Vaccine success
Originally published in The Nyngan Weekly
More than 1500 people in the Bogan Shire have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
A highly successful Australian Defence Force (ADF) vaccination clinic run by NSW Health more than doubled the shire’s vaccination rate last week.
The percentage of eligible people with their first dose of a vaccine is now more than 80 per cent.
In a massive three-day vaccination blitz, the pop-up clinic administered 977 doses of COVID-19 vaccine. This adds to the 605 first doses already administered by the Bogan Shire Medical Centre (BSMC). NSW Health had informed Bogan shire that the clinic could administer up to 300 doses a day.
Bogan shire general manager, Derek Francis, said he was pleased to have met that target.
“When I heard they could do up to 300 a day, I thought ‘that’s a lot per day’. I was hoping we’d get 300 but I wasn’t sure if we would, so it was really great to see we exceeded that.”
Bogan shire mayor, Ray Donald, has been encouraging residents to get vaccinated since vaccines first became available in Nyngan earlier in the year and was pleased with the turn out.
“I’d like to thank the people for coming forward to be vaccinated, both at the clinic and at the Bogan Shire Medical Centre. It will certainly be remembered as an historic response to what is a natural disaster.”
In addition to the clinic, the BSMC has been issuing close to 120 doses a week, with appointments booked out well in advance.
Mr Francis expects to see appointments freeing up in the coming weeks as people who attended the pop-up cancel scheduled BSMC appointments.
“Everyone who was booked in last week turned up, there was no benefit for those people to go to the ADF clinic and wait in line. In the coming weeks we’ll see a number of people cancelling and hopefully we can bring people forward.
“A number of people who may have had bookings in November may be able to have their appointment sooner.”
Both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines were available at the pop-up, and the BSMC continues to administer both after a slight delay in obtaining Pfizer approval.
As the COVID-19 situation in Western NSW continues to evolve, confusion has arisen in relation to the wait time between AstraZeneca doses.
NSW Health has encouraged people living in areas of concern to move their second dose forward, cutting the 12-week gap to as few as four. Mr Francis said that while the Bogan shire is not listed as an area of concern, the BSMC maintains a preferred 12-week interval between AstraZeneca doses.
This is in line with Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation original recommendations for non-outbreak circumstances.
“Currently recommendations vary depending on where you are, and it is making it difficult to make informed decisions.
“Nyngan is not an outbreak centre, and we understand the efficiency of the vaccine is less if you reduce the time between doses.
“Broadly speaking, we recommend sticking to 12 weeks unless the situation changes in Nyngan, but as always it depends on individual doctors and people’s medical circumstances.”
The Nyngan ADF pop-up clinic was one of several travelling across western NSW in response to the Dubbo COVID-19 out- break. The clinic will return to Nyngan in the coming weeks to administer second doses. NSW Health has not yet released the dates on which they will return to town.