General Frewen said Wednesday’s meeting with business was an initial discussion about how the private sector can fit into the vaccination program.
“It’s just another way of helping accelerate the program and using another workforce that’s out there,” he said,adding many larger businesses already provided flu vaccinations for their staff.
“They are used to vaccinating their workforce,it’s another efficiency in the program. Potentially,it also takes the burden off both the primary healthcare system and some of the state mechanisms.“
The private sector has already put up its hand to aid the rollout in other ways.
Woolworths Group head of COVID Response Ross Spencer said the company,which is Australia’s largest private employer,has rolled out an annual flu vaccination program for staff for many years and was happy to do the same with COVID vaccines particularly for their frontline teams.
“We’re also open to offering up our facilities to governments for public vaccine pop-ups if it’s helpful,” he said.
Woolworths has large distribution centres in outer-metropolitan areas as well as 35 shopping centres wholly owned by the company in regional areas that it believes could be suitable for pop-up clinics or to support vaccination centres.
Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka said she was keen to see big employers running their own vaccination hubs for their staff. She also wants the federal government to boost the public education campaign and commit to a clear timeline to measure vaccination progress.
“I think what the community most needs right now is confidence. Confidence in the vaccines on offer in Australia,confidence in their rollout,and confidence that they can visit family,friends and grow business across state and national boundaries,” Ms Hrdlicka said.
General Frewen said if vaccine supplies arrive as planned,business could be vaccinating by September.
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“Certainly from around September or October when we have greater access to the vaccines,I think that might be when workplace vaccination could be opened up,” he said.
That could be at the same time as the national rollout also widens to younger Australians,General Frewen said.
“If we’ve got the amount of supply that we forecast to have in those stages,then that is around about the time when we might be able to look at bringing more choice into the program,but we can’t put a hard time on that just yet,” he said.
In a planning meeting on Tuesday with state and territory leaders General Frewen’s team “wargamed” the rest of the rollout,looking at potential setbacks and how they could be addressed as well as any pinch points those jurisdictions anticipated over the coming months.
That national vaccination plan will be adjusted following Tuesday and Wednesday meetings,and that draft plan will be shared with states and territories before being made public later on. A second business wargaming session will be held in a fortnight.
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