New pop-up vaccination sites for Melbourne suburbs worst hit by Delta outbreak

Schools and religious centres will be transformed into pop-up vaccination hubs under a state government plan to prioritise jabs in Melbourne suburbs worst hit by the state’s expanding Delta outbreak.

Premier Daniel Andrews said the state was “rapidly approaching” the 70 per cent first-dose target - a goal originally projected to be reached around September 23 - after 400,000 bookings were made this week.

Under the plan, around 70 schools will be transformed into community vaccination hubs.

The announcement comes after Victoria recorded 392 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, after emergency department waiting rooms at Dandenong Hospital and a chemist at a major shopping centre in Melbourne’s north-west were deemed tier-1 exposure sites.

More than two-thirds of Victoria’s 392 new cases on Sunday were reported in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Just 107 of the locally acquired cases have been linked to current outbreaks.

There were 255 cases reported in Melbourne’s north, with the City of Hume accounting for a third of the total number of locally acquired cases on Sunday.

A quarter of the cases reported were found in the western suburbs.

Deputy Chief Health Officer Daniel O’Brien said there was a “significant outbreak” connected to the Fitzroy Community School, with at least 30 cases connected to the school, including staff and students.

“Urgent further investigation is going on into that site to obviously make sure that we get that under control and find out the reasons for what looks like a significant outbreak,” he said.

Five new cases were also reported in regional Victoria, including one in Mildura, one in Geelong and one case in Macedon Ranges. Two cases, which could be false-positive cases, were returned in East Gippsland.

There were 36,534 vaccination doses delivered across Victoria on Saturday, with more than 48,000 test results returned.

State’s road map out of lockdown to be revealed in a week

Andrews said the first five community pop-ups will be based in Hume, Dandenong and Casey local government areas.Credit:Joe Armao

The figures come after Mr Andrews said he would reveal a road map out of lockdown towards an 80 per cent full vaccination rate in a week’s time.

Mr Andrews said ministers would be receiving more Burnet Institute modelling in the coming days, and that the major announcement next week would include information around mandatory vaccination and what businesses can open and when.

He previously promised that once the state reaches 70 per cent of the eligible population having had their first vaccination, there would be an expanded 10-kilometre travel limit, a three-hour exercise limit, and outdoor personal training and private real estate inspections would return.

“We’ll be releasing modelling and will be talking to that in some detail,” Mr Andrews said.

“We’re aiming to deliver on all of the commitments that we had foreshadowed, I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t guarantee that, but that’s what we’re working towards.

“If we can go further in any areas, we will. That’ll be based on advice but the first thing to do is get to the 70 per cent first dose.”

No date for a return to face-to-face learning: Andrews

Mr Andrews said that schools would re-open to all students as soon as it was safe but did not commit to a term 4 return date.

“I want to get kids back in the classroom as quickly as possible,” he said.

“But what I will say to every single parent, whether it be primary school or secondary school parents: I will not send kids back to school against the advice of the medical experts.”

“I will not send kids back to school against the advice of the medical experts.”

Daniel Andrews

He said the comprehensive road map would include information about ventilation at schools and staggered entry times for students.

Children aged between 12 and 15 years can receive a COVID-19 vaccination in Victoria from Monday.

Exposure site list swells

Two waiting rooms at Dandenong Hospital’s emergency department, a Chemist Warehouse in Watergardens Shopping Centre and a dental clinic in Doreen are Victoria’s latest tier-1 exposure sites.

Both the clinic waiting room and main waiting room at the emergency department were listed as exposure sites after a case attended on the evening of September 8.

Chemist Warehouse in the major Taylor Lakes shopping centre, 20 kilometres north west of the Melbourne CBD, has been listed as an exposure site after an infected person attended the store on September 4 and again on September 6.

A COVID-19 positive case visited Doreen’s Care Dental Group in Melbourne’s north-east during the morning of September 7.

Anyone who has visited a tier-1 exposure site is required to isolate for 14 days and get tested as soon as possible. The number of exposure sites across the state has risen to 1085.

It has been just over five weeks since Melbourne’s sixth lockdown began, and it is not clear how the outbreak which spurred the restrictions began. One possibility is that the infections were a consequence of a new introduction of the Delta strain with NSW origins, which took root within just a few weeks, The Age can reveal.

Dr Norelle Sherry, a genomics expert with the Doherty Institute, said analysis of samples indicated there was “most likely” another introduction of the virus, separate to older outbreaks including a cluster seeded by NSW removalists that prompted the state’s fifth lockdown.

With Aisha Dow

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