Also NSW targeted the high risk LGAs with expedited vaccinations.
As was the case in Victoria. However the point of difference is that in NSW, that the NSW Gov and Federal Gov both did.
Whereas in Vic, the Vic Gov did, but the Federal Gov did not till their announcement on Sep 12, but in practice it was not till the last week of September that the ramp-up started and not till mid-Oct that the Primary Care Channel actually had reasonable capacity in Victoria. .
In Vic from August 50% of vaccinations in the State Channel were prioritised to go to hotspot LGA's. From July 13 anytime a local hotspot developed the State Chanel opened up pop-ups clinics. ie At the Al Taqwa School, at St Kilda. As cases grew more dedicated state hubs were opened up in the hotspot LGA's (including Australia's first drive through hub). Plus clinics at places of worship, council locations and many more schools. That has lifted the vaccination rates greatly, but without the Primary Care Channel functioning it has not yet got to the level desired.
At 100 cases per day Gladys declared a national emergency, at 200 cases per day the Federal Gov started allocating extra doses to the high risk LGA's in Sydney and at 415 cases per day the Federal Government the Fed Gov announced that of the extra Polish Pfizer (which it turned out was not extra coughulatively as the direct Pfizer orders in Sept were less that planned) that 530K would go to the NSW High risk LGA's. Victoria received 175K doses. With purchases from the Singapore and and the EU allocation was pro-rat, but NSW were distributed first.
In July and August with telling anyone over 430k of Pfizer was redirected from the Primary Care Channel Vic, and more from Qld too, to the NSW Primary Care Channel. Only when an ABC journalist put together various data sources was it discovered what the Federal Gov had been doing. So the announced "brought forward" Pfizer doses for NSW were actually not brought forward at all, but were instead taken from the Vic and Qld allocations who received less.
General Frewen also later reported that in Vic that the expansion of the Primary Care Channel was paused in August , whereas in NSW LGA's of concern it was accelerated. This was despite NSW already having pro-rata a much larger number of GP's already vaccinating. Whereas in Vic the Commonwealth's Primary Care Channel was the nations smallest on a pro-rata basis. As pharmacists were opened up in NSW and Qld, hardly any where approved by the Commonwealth in Vic, and priority of expanding pharmacies was given to NSW.
On Sept 12 the Fed announced that Vic would get 400K of catch up doses. However crucially most were to be Moderna and not the Pfizer that was not supplied. The problem with that as the Commonwealth had not yet adequately opened enough Pharmacists in Vic, and especially in the hotspot LGA's, and so it did not have the capacity to actually inject those Moderna doses. It is only now in mid-Oct that the Primary Care Channel including Pharmacists is adequately up and running. Due the that failure 130K doses of Moderna were switched to the Vic State Hub Channel to deliver, and this went to the hotspot Channels, but it meant it happened mainly in October and not September.
Now we all now that NSW had a dire need early on, and so some extra measures were warranted.
However those actions actually while greatly speeding up the NSW Vaccination Program, also slowed down the Victorian Vaccination Program.
Furthermore as cases grew in Victoria no effective redress occurred from the Feds in terms of vaccinations in arms till October. It is only now in in Victoria mid-October that Pharmacies and additional GP's are deployed at a reasonable level across the state. Prior to mid-Sept, the Primary Care Channel GPs in Vic were biased to the rural regions (Which is why Vic is the opposite of NSW where vaccination rates are lower in the regions) and non-hotpot LGA's of Melbourne.
but if it gets paxvax the juice could be worth the squeeze
Time to retire again ...
