COVID-19 and the community sector

Video transcript

EMMA KING: So today we are very lucky to be joined by two senior advisors to Victoria’s COVID-19 immunisation program. Professor Benjamin Cowie is an infectious diseases physician, normally at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and The Doherty Institute.

Jade Hart holds a Master’s of Health Service Management and is also an expert in clinical governance. Many of you will know Jade through her fantastic work at the Victorian and Tasmanian Primary Health Network Alliance. Thank you both for joining us today, Ben and Jade. We really appreciate it.

I might ask both of you just to very briefly introduce, introduce yourselves to talk about your role in the rollout that we’re seeing underway at the moment, and then launch into your final presentation. When you’re finished I’ll join you again, and we’ll step through some of the questions that we’ve already received and looking forward, of course to receiving more as a presentation continues. So thank you and over to you, Ben and Jade.

BEN COWIE: Thank you so much for that very kind introduction, Emma. So I might start by introducing myself very briefly and then I’ll hand back to Jade and then we’ll go through our presentation with me first and then again Jade bringing it home.

So yeah, my name is Ben and I’m an infectious diseases specialist. I usually work at the Royal Melbourne clinically and at the Doherty Institute as a researcher but I’m currently seconded full-time to the Department of Health to share the role with Jade of Executive Director for Engagement and Partnerships within the COVID-19 vaccination program here in Victoria. And I’ll pause while Jade introduces herself.

JADE HART:  Good morning, everyone. My name is Jade Hart, Executive Director supporting Engagement and Partnership work working with Ben Cowie. Look forward to some discussion today around the program and how we can work with you in terms of next steps.

BEN COWIE: Thanks Jade. So we do have some slides, I’ll start sharing my screen. I’ll talk through some of the details of the vaccines and the program and how Victoria is planning to implement the Australian Government’s COVID-19 vaccination program in this stage. And then Jade is going to take over and talk more about our approach to engagement and partnerships which is obviously a subject that’s very close to both our hearts. So colleagues, I’m going to stop sharing my screen now. So that should be projecting now. So as I’ve mentioned, we are going to give an update at this exciting time when we’re now on our third day of the rollout of the Australian Government’s vaccine program here in Victoria. And there are three pillars behind it the program that we’re implementing here in Victoria that we’re committed to ensuring. And the first is that all Victorians have access to this vaccination program. It’s free for everybody in Victoria. And we really want to ensure that we make the vaccines easy to access for all eligible Victorians.

As we move through the phases of the vaccination program which I’ll come back to and talk about in more detail later on in this presentation. But we also want to make sure that these are accessible locally for all Victorians that they’re easy to access. There’s a vaccination available close to home and in a range of settings that are appropriate for Victorians in all walks of life and from all communities across our state. And it’s important to ensure that not only are these services accessible but that we’re delivering the entire vaccination program with the highest levels of safety and quality. These vaccines are very safe and I’ll come back to that point but we need the program itself to have the highest levels of safety with expertly trained workforce and the ability to ensure that the entire process from the time people receive that invitation to be vaccinated all the way through to the follow-up following their completion, their second dose has the highest quality and safety standards underlying it because that’s how we’ll build public trust and confidence. We need all Victorians to feel that the program being implemented here in Victoria is transparent that they have all the information they need about the program and the vaccines and that we’re engaging really fully with all Victorians in this what essentially is the largest public health undertaking in our national history. It’s a huge opportunity and we want to grab it with both hands.

So I’ve made this point but it’s actually really important when we think about the entire vaccination program including the phase 1A release. And that is that this is a Commonwealth program. It’s the Commonwealth government who’s purchased the vaccines. It’s the Commonwealth who is distributing the vaccines and has established for example, the prioritisation under which we’re offering these vaccines to the population based on level of risk. So it, whilst it’s a Commonwealth program we want to implement it as effectively and safely as possible here in Victoria. And that’s our express objective to vaccinate every eligible Victoria over the course of this year because this is an important part of how we protect our health, look after each other and keep Victoria as open as we can in the face of COVID-19.

So the Commonwealth has those clear roles one of which is to provide vaccination for disability care residents. So residential disability care residents and staff here in Victoria. So the Commonwealth is running that program. The Commonwealth is also responsible for private residential aged care staff and residents as well. We’ll come back to some of those details around the different populations subsequently but the Victorian government is responsible clearly for providing guidelines for establishing some of the health service based vaccination such as the hospital vaccination hubs which are already up and running now and had over 1200 Victorians vaccinated in the last two days and there’ll be hundreds more today. So the health services are doing a great job at getting this program established and building up calmly and steadily to the sort of numbers we all want to see. Because they, the vaccine centres are the ones who are doing the real work here. They’re the ones who are out there giving the vaccine to Victorians. But also we know that our health system, our providers, our partners are the ones who really are the trusted sources of information for all Victorians. And so as well as putting vaccine and arms they’re also already putting it in people’s hearts and minds.

And that’s really critical. I’ll spend a little bit of time talking about the vaccines. As Emma said at the start we’ll have plenty of time for questions and answers and I’m looking forward to hearing those and to working through those with everybody online. And also, I always learn from that process. So I’m looking forward to it, but in the first instance one of the issues that comes up is why do we only have the nine vaccination hubs. Four up and running at the moment three in metropolitan Melbourne at Western and Austin and Monash Health. And then in the regions Barwon is up and running as well five more to come. But why are there only nine? This is part of the Commonwealth government’s rollout. And one of the really essential points of knowledge about the Pfizer vaccine, which is the one we have now is that it needs to be kept at negative 70 degrees. That’s much, much colder than our usual cold chain for other vaccines. It’s very, very cold and it requires special freezer capacity and distribution networks.

So that’s why this can’t be more broadly offered at different places in Victoria.

However, our hubs are doing a great job not just vaccinating on site, but for example, Alfred Health in partnership with Monash is doing onsite vaccination in our hotel quarantine program. And Western Health is doing outreach to the airport and Barwon Health is doing outreach to the port of Portland, which has already started. So there is some outreach occurring already in the first days of the program. I’ll talk more about this subsequently, but the AstraZeneca vaccine which we believe we’ll be receiving later probably late March that requires normal cold chain vaccination, storage and distribution. So that will be available at far more sites across Victoria other health services, general practice I’ll come back to those points in a moment, pharmacies a whole range of settings. That’s going to make it a lot more accessible for many more Victorians. These vaccines are really safe. They’ve been used in initially in clinical trials which have included tens of thousands of volunteers to receive these vaccines. And that’s just for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. And they’ve now been used in tens of millions of people worldwide. And we’re getting really exciting results real world results showing that hospitalisation and even transmission of COVID-19 is significantly reducing in those countries where significant proportions of the population have been vaccinated. That brings me to the question of efficacy or the effectiveness of the vaccine.

These biggest here are the ones that have been largely reported in the media. It’s important to note that the difference between these vaccines, firstly, is significantly less when the spacing between the AstraZeneca vaccine is made longer. And that’s why here in Australia we’re probably going to be looking at 12 weeks spacing between doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in the trials that suggested we’ll get up above 80% protection against symptomatic COVID infection, which is more similar to that that we’re seeing with a Pfizer vaccine. But the second point, and this is just coming out this week from the United Kingdom that the AstraZeneca vaccine is actually protecting very substantially above 90% reduction in hospitalisation for COVID-19 amongst those who have been vaccinated. These are great results and they’re exciting. And we look forward to seeing the benefits of these vaccines, particularly in those countries of the world who are experiencing tragically such substantial infection and illness and tragically loss of life from COVID-19 currently.

So we’ve received around 11,000 doses of vaccine from the Commonwealth government this week for the Pfizer vaccine. That’s going to double in a few weeks as we move through and do the second doses for the people who’ve already been vaccinated but also continue to vaccinate a larger sections of the population in particularly that priority 1A which I’ll come back to, but the AstraZeneca vaccine as well as being available in far more places across Victoria, we’re going to have a lot more doses. And we understand that at peak we’re going to have around 250,000 doses of that vaccine available to us every week.

This is a huge challenge but it’s such an opportunity to protect our community from COVID-19 and really move towards that COVID normal way of life that we’re trying to get back to. So if you think about this over the course of 2021 we’re really in that initial buildup phase at the moment we’re only three days in and we’re going slowly and steadily, but we’re really going to ramp up. And that ramp up will kick off properly once we have the AstraZeneca vaccine. And then as you see from this graph we’re hoping that at peak, between May and August we’ll be vaccinating hundreds of thousands of Victorians every week. And that’s a really exciting prospect. So I’ve referred a few times to the prioritisation, who goes first, who comes next, as we go through the vaccination program. The priority 1A group, which has shown on this slide on the left hand side includes frontline at risk healthcare workers. It includes obviously our quarantine and border workers who are, as we all are aware and the events of the last two weeks have reaffirmed for us amongst the highest risk individuals we want to protect but it also includes aged care and disability care residents and staff. And this comes back to that important point I made earlier.

For aged care the residents and staff in private residential aged care will be a the vaccination program is run directly through the Commonwealth, through private parole providers whereas for public sector, residential aged care it’s the state of Victoria through our hospital vaccination hubs that are responsible for providing that initial rollout. For disability care residents and staff the Commonwealth government again is providing that whole program both on the private and public sector. So that’s an important point of difference that it will be being run through private providers, contracted directly from the Commonwealth and not through the state system for the disability care sector. But then we move through the other phases and for phase 1B, which we hope to be able to get to maybe in early April, that will start to include a much broader range of Victorians including all people aged 70 years and over completing vaccinating our entire healthcare workforce beginning to vaccinate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over the age of 55, vaccinating younger adults with an underlying medical condition and that includes people living with disabilities. And other critical and high risk workers including defence, police, fire, and emergency services and people working in certain industries such as meat processing. And then as you see through phase 2A and phase 2B the age groups come down and the breadth of the offering in the Victorian and Australian population really sort of increases.

So these are our hospital vaccination hubs, the three in metropolitan Melbourne that I’ve already mentioned. And then the six regional local public health units Barwon, Goulburn Valley, Latrobe, Bendigo, Ballarat and Albury Wodonga. And really their express focus at this point in time is vaccinating that priority 1A population that I was mentioning from the previous slide but then we come to the much broader offering that is made possible by AstraZeneca vaccine and whilst our hospitals and health services will continue to have a very important role here.

I’m excited about this, and I know Jade’s been doing a lot of work and thinking about this too about the much broader offering that we can think about including for instance, community health centres. Who’ve had such an important part of our response to the COVID pandemic so far, particularly for some of those vulnerable and priority populations but also general practices and pharmacies, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations and starting to think about some innovative models such as high throughput or mass vaccination centres and potentially mobile teams. So this is just spelling out some of those details in in a little bit more detail I should say so that you can see that whilst we’re focusing on our 1A population through our hospital hubs right now, we’re putting a lot of thought and energy into how we can broaden this offering out to include the entire Victorian population. An essential part of that is building partnerships and increasing engagement. And I would like to hand over to my colleague Jade Hart. Who’s going to take us through some of the details in this space over to you, Jade.

– Thanks for that, Ben. So this opportunity to speak with you today is really just recognising that you sort of key partners in this work. We see this as a really important and meaningful program of work, and it came to work with you in all next steps going forward. The work that Ben and I are focused on is really about how do we communicate, engage and establish partnerships that is seek to achieve key and agreed goals. We recognise the COVID immunisation program is just one element of Victoria’s comprehensive pandemic response. So we are mindful of the work that you’ve done within your organisations, whether it’s in the preparedness space, the work that you’ve done with your clients in terms of prevention. And what we’re hoping to do is work with you around those next steps, in terms of adding the vaccine to sort of a toolkit in the response.

The work that we plan to do and roll out over the next couple of weeks is really system oriented, tailored. So we’ve started conversations with and they came to work with you around how we can start to think about really mobilising the vaccination health promotion within a broader service system response. One important aspect to really emphasise is that we really need to be responsive to where our clients and where our communities are at. We think about vaccine hesitancy as a spectrum so we don’t think about it as as a yes or no sort of question. We know that that we’ve got those that are really keen enthusiastic and really supportive of the vaccine. So therefore the task ahead for us is how do we support them to have a convenient and high quality experience through the program. We know down the other end of the spectrum that there are a dose that objectors to the vaccine, but importantly there are people that sit within in the middle of those two sort of pop ends of the spectrum. That’s where we know that we anticipate that probably 20% of the population have questions. So here’s for the task for us and the engagement space is how do we build opportunities to provide information, to support whether it’s community leaders, health and human services professionals sort of trusted clinical advisors within the community.

And that can include sort of bilingual workers, for example to support the community to have a conversation about the vaccine, such that we can enable people to move down that path so that as they are invited to participate in the program which refers to the slides that Ben was presenting around prioritisation and access that we can start to have people feel confident and trust the program that they’re able to participate when they’re ready. And finally, it’s important to emphasise that everything that we do in the COVID prevention and preparedness space is integrated. So we really are thinking about how we’re really sensitive to messaging where we’re looking at prevention and preparedness what it means in an outbreak setting and the why in which the vaccine is really missed it in those messages.

So the next slide really just emphasises our important work that we have ahead of us around communications. So this is where the Victorian government is working hand in glove with the Commonwealth around how do we best communicate? We know that there are established universal channels to achieve reach. So whether that’s kind of websites, social media, campaigns based work, but importantly we know the importance of direct engagement and that’s where we’re keen to work with you around questions, methods and strategies to help us really understand how we can best engage communities and clients in the most sensible way. And this is where some of the principles around the role of sort of trusted leaders or key persons within communities and as well as yourselves as key providers of service for clients have an important role in working with us going forward. So this last slide really builds on that in terms of the the strategies that we’re planning to roll out over the next couple of weeks. We know that the task ahead of us is to inform but then what would came to work with you on is how do we best engage and how do we best engage and really empower yourself to support us in really this common cause going forward. Some of the strategies that we have in place are focused around kind of grassroots engagement.

So whether that’s working groups, Ben in particular has been leading a lot of work working with our culturally and linguistically diverse communities. We’ve also really recognised that industry are key partners in this space. So if you think about some of the sort of outbreak experiences, and even that example that Ben had raised in terms of meat processing there’s a task ahead for how we work together with the industry to design models of service delivery in terms of immunisation rollout. That’ll enable us to have the most convenient experience for individuals along the way. Alongside this we are really mindful about priority populations but also the notion of place. So as a team, we are working with local government in terms of working community engagement the work that we’re doing as an immunizer workforce but also questions ahead for us in terms of how do we make sure that we’re building really strong understanding about the vaccine at the with the community itself as the unit of focus.

I think that might be our last slide Ben, but and over to you for closing remarks.

– Thanks Jade. Look, I might hand back to Emma. I think that you’ve really captured the thrust of where we’re going really well. I’ve got nothing to add Jade. So I think with that, I will hand back to Emma. Thank you.

– Thank you so much, Ben and Jade. That was a fantastic presentation, incredibly informative. And I’ve seen lots of questions coming through. One that I’ll just touch on before we hand over to the others. And that is to, for those people who jumped on slightly later, we are recording today’s session. It will be made available. It will be captioned. And we’ll share that with all of you. So if you did jump on slightly late, or you have questions about that, I just wanted to reiterate that as well. Now, in terms of the questions, I’ve got a list of questions that we’d given that will provided by many of you on the line in the lead up to today. So I’ll start with some of those. And also do you remember that you can enter your questions in two ways as is now up on the screen in terms of the Zoom Webinar question box or go to Slido as well with any questions of which we have many. So let’s get started. So first of all and I’m not sure I might just pose the questions Ben and Jade, you can sort of choose who takes them depending on what’s most appropriate. The first question I had was does the vaccine stop the spread of the virus or just protect from the worst symptoms?

– So thanks, Emma. Maybe I’ll start with that one. And initially the clinical trials really were looking at the second part of that question, so stopping symptoms. They certainly both vaccines are very effective at preventing symptomatic or illness from COVID-19. And even more importantly, they were both extremely highly effective at preventing serious disease such as requiring hospitalisation and preventing loss of life from COVID-19. But now in particularly some of the data coming out from Israel have showed that they do prevent transmission of COVID-19 also, this is incredibly exciting because this information is starting to answer that question of, are we just preventing illness or are we actually blocking transmission? And it does certainly seem that we’re blocking transmission. And even after the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, for example, we are seeing that even amongst people who get infected after their first dose in the days afterwards that they have significantly reduced amount of virus being shared, or in all that’s detectable in their swabs which shows that even if they do get infection they’re less likely to transmit it to others. So these are really exciting and quite new findings which will continue to inform our approach.

– Thanks, Ben, that’s incredibly helpful. One of the other questions I’ve had as well is around children and kids under 16 and a question around is it correct that kids under 16 don’t need to be vaccinated?

– So we don’t have the evidence to answer that yet. What we can say is that the clinical trials did not include people under the age of 16 for the Pfizer vaccine. And actually didn’t include people under the age of 18 for the AstraZeneca vaccine. So what we don’t have is evidence of benefit in in people in that age group, those younger people. That’s why they’re not included in the current roll out of vaccine by the Australian government. They’re not registered for use amongst people under those ages of 16, for Pfizer and in AstraZeneca. As those clinical trials are occurring right now if evidence comes in that they are effective and clearly safe which we expect them to be amongst younger people then though they will be added to the vaccine program once we’ve vaccinated larger proportions of the population. It is important to remember that younger people had much lower rates of serious illness and hospitalisation, even when they got COVID than did adults and older Victorians. So it’s, I don’t think it’s something to be worried about but the evidence is not in yet.

– That’s really helpful. Thank you for the context now. Just stay on this sort of topic for a moment before I flip to some others cause had a question that’s on the flip side of that as well, which is around, is there a tonne of which people are too elderly to be immunised as well?

– So that’s a really important question. We know that COVID-19 some of the real tragedy that we saw last year was amongst more senior Victorians. And we know that with every sort of increasing decade of age, you have a greater chance of having serious COVID and tragically of losing your life if you actually acquire COVID. So there’s that real imperative on the one side so we want to do everything we can to protect senior Victorians. On the other side, we do know that particularly people who are quite frail or have very limited life expectancy that potentially the role of vaccine especially in the absence of community transmission doesn’t have as great an impetus as it does in some other parts of the world. And it can also lead to concerns about, potential side effects of vaccine, et cetera in people who are very frail. So at this point in time, there’s no absolute age limit but particularly for people who are, for instance in palliative care or very, very other medically unstable or very frail, it really has to be taking a case by case basis and the best people to inform individuals and their families and their carers on that is the people who are providing those people their usual care, their GP, that nursing staff and other trusted health providers. But just to be absolutely clear there is no absolute upper age limit, and we really want to protect senior Victorians from COVID-19.

– Thank you, Ben. And I just wanted to flag so I can see lots of questions coming through again for those of you who weren’t on at the beginning we’ve allowed an hour for questions. So bear with us. We have lots of questions to work through but we really are aiming to get through all of them during the presentation today. So I just wanted to let you know that as all of you sort of feeling anxious, that we haven’t got to add to your question yet. One of the other questions I’ve had through is around how will a person, I heard this actually Norman Swan talking about this last night as well on ABC. How will a person know when they can be vaccinated? So they get a letter, an email, a phone call, what sort of system is in place for that at the moment and how might that work?

– So I can start with some of the information systems side of that. I dunno if Jade would like to come in on the communications and the engagement with people around that process as well, but from a from a systems point of view, I guess in the first instance what I would say is that it’s going to change as we work through the phases of people over the course of this year. So at the moment with the priority 1A populations and thinking particularly about workforces, such as hotel quarantine workers, border workers and healthcare workers their employers are providing the department with contact details for those individuals which would be loaded into what is going to be a significant part of the state’s system systematic response called COVID-19 Vaccine Management System or CVMS. And the invitations to be vaccinated will be generated through that system. And so people are actually emailed to offer them vaccination and with schedules, et cetera. So whilst that will continue as we move particularly through some of the public sector or some of the other vaccination sites in Victoria, as we move to a broader population approach with general practice people will actually need to book in with their GPS when they’re eligible for vaccination. And that we’ll use that the Commonwealth has opted to use existing, for instance, booking systems for general practice that are already in the marketplace to for people to be able to book in. So we need to support Victorians to be aware of when their turn is coming up in the prioritisation and ensuring that they then know to book in at their preferred vaccination site, whether that’s their GP or a pharmacy or a community health centre Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Org or another site. Jade, I don’t know if you wanted to speak a little bit more about sort of how we’re going to be informing and engaging with people as we go forward.

– Yeah. So just to flag that the Commonwealth website also provides some details around the priority cohorts so where individuals may fit the Commonwealth has also released it’s sort of an eligibility checkoff. So individuals can complete a sort of short questionnaire and get a bit of a steer on where they may see it across the priority cohorts. So having that sort of base information around where an individual may seater where a client or a workforce type my seat will help us kind of enable us to get messages out to key cohorts as they are invited to the program.

– Thank you. And I guess in terms of, as you said working on this program in partnership and it’s going to be so critical for so many people who are on this call, who work with people who fit into vulnerable cohorts as well. One of the questions I’ve got probably flows quite nicely from that. And I know it was something that came up during the COVID testing process as well, but where some of the testing was changed so that there were arrangements in place for people who can’t easily leave their homes or travel to a vaccination hub. I’m not sure, I’m sure you probably have started to think about this yet. What can you inform us about on that front at this stage?

– As we start to think about the AstraZeneca product in particular and where Ben alluded to the Commonwealth work that’s underway around the role of a general practice, community pharmacy and the Aboriginal community controlled sector as well as the dedicated GP respiratory clinics we just have been stood up nationally. As part of a really I guess, long alongside that Commonwealth rollout there will be a piece of work for the state to think about where are the potential opportunities to extend the depth of reach as part of that then there’s some thinking about what are the modalities that are going to work for particular cohorts. But then a question also for this group is, getting a bit of steer from you around what are the insights that you have that can help us enable us to design a service that is really responsive. In line with that some of the options obviously that you would expect including In-Reach into someone’s home, mobile access really community led sort of approaches. So we’ve heard a little bit from communities around a rugby club that’s really sort of accessible to communities the way in which community leaders can help to support. Those sorts of strategies are ones that we’re keen to kind of work through with partners like those in the line today in VCOSS, so that we can continually sort of tailor the response as well.

– Thank you. And I think it’d be good to, we’ll have a conversation offline as well to work out kind of some of the best ways of doing this which will be fantastic as well. Do you know at the moment, I’m not sure whether this is a a question that you’re able to answer but do you know whether people will have financial support if they need to miss work in order to get their vaccination?

– So we certainly, I can answer this. I mean, neither Jade nor I really sort of across the industrial law aspects of this, et cetera. But I certainly know that the current employer groups such as health services and those employing for instance, hotel quarantine workers are ensuring that workers are vaccinated during paid time. And that for people who and who get some of the expected and almost always very mild side effects that they are able to access sick leave for their time whilst they’re unable to work. If they’ve got symptoms following vaccination which again do occur, that’s a sign the immune system is working and for the vast majority of people they’re are quite mild and that they come and go within 48 hours following vaccination. But yes, they have been included in in the vaccination has occurred during paid hours. I think that this is, I was in a meeting last night with the Victorian Trades Hall Council where this was discussed and their approaches to employers in relation to this and providing information for their members. They’re certainly out there and engaging in this space and as our employers in date, and we’ve run a symposia with a range of employer groups as well. So that certainly has been the case so far through the 1A roll out.

– Thank you and again, this is probably part is just so in terms of the industrial aspect, but other questions have brought around people who perhaps, are self-employed or almost working, don’t have a part-time or regular kind of work engagement with one particular employer. So I guess it’s something to flag. I’m not sure if you’re able to comment on that today.

– So, sorry, Jade, were you going to say something or…

– No you can go.

– Okay. So certainly I’m not trying to suggest that this whole program is occupationally founded. Clearly there are worker groups priority critical workers who we are approaching them through their employer but just to make it absolutely clear, the vast majority of Victorians will not be vaccinated through their employer. There’ll be vaccinated through existing health delivery mechanisms whether that’s their local GP, whether it’s a pharmacy, whether it’s their local council, whether it’s a community health centre, there’s going to be a much broader range of vaccinators. And so it’s not all going to be founded around that occupational interface. Just to make that absolutely clear.

– Yeah. Thank you. That’s really helpful. And I guess one of the other questions that’s come through as we’ve been talking as well is around and Jade I think touched on this earlier, as well as around what it may well be for further discussion but what role do you see the community sector applying when it comes to vaccinations?

– Well, I think there’s many sort of important roles. I think there’s an element of how we work with the sector around how to best inform. So I guess going back to first principles and and we know that there are the relationship with that providers have with their clients are unique. So we’re not coming from an assumption that people have necessarily a GP that they’ve had that relationship lead for two decades. We know that then that an ILO day worker family violence worker can have a really important role in supporting a pathway to have a conversation about the vaccine, that path to participation. So there’s an element around how we support a message to inform our clients where and really being a good position to work through any questions. There’s an element around how we work with you to make sure we design a response that’s a risk sensitive to your city. So whether that’s for your clients but also for your workforce itself. And I think there’s really, I guess a continued focus around how we best engage at that sort of more community level.

– Yeah. Thank you. There’s a few questions that are coming through about different settings, et cetera. But I might jump to a couple of specific questions around disability and eligibility as well. One of the questions I’ve had come through is what evidence do you need to be included in the cohort with a medical condition or a disability?

– Yeah, that’s a really central question. And it’s one that we’re sort of trying to get a little bit more clarity from our Commonwealth colleagues on. So there’s been a range of options that have been put forward. The first is clearly if people have an existing relationship with their GP, their GP has all of their medical information already on file. And so their GP will be placed to be able to address who is eligible and who is not. If they don’t have a usual GP or for some reason they’re unable to see their usual GP for vaccination. For instance, if their GP is not one of those who is going to be giving vaccination, then My Health Record is another way that might be able to demonstrate the existing, for instance medical conditions or even prescriptions for instance, someone’s prescription for insulin, if they’re a person living with diabetes might be the kind of thing that might be used. So I think there’s going to be a range of ways to do this. We do need more information from the Commonwealth but I think existing platforms, existing service provision is going to be a big foundation to that. There has been some discussion of things like statutory declarations, et cetera. But I think in the first instance, we really need to rely on existing existing information sources and existing patterns of care to really be the foundation of this.

– Yeah, thank you. And it raises some interesting questions around the My Health website as well so doesn’t it when people have elected to opt out. So more, more ethical questions, I guess to be answered along the way around how we navigate that. Another question, just sticking with disability for a moment. So more around people who sort of work in disability or into for example, working, disability advocates, language interpreters, et cetera who work in close proximity to people is probably going back to some more of your initial questions. But when do you think that those people are likely to be vaccinated?

– So the prioritisation, which again is run by the Commonwealth. It there’s some detail in there for particularly the 1A cohorts or groups of people I should say. And I liked the term cohort for people but the one I sort of priority groups, I think as we go forward, more detailed will become available for the other sort of 1B, 2A priority groups. Certainly I think it’s important to remember that anyone who is described as a healthcare worker and that’s not just clinical healthcare workers but people who work in the broader health care delivery system if you like are included in 1B. So that that’s an important founding principle. But again, there is likely to be more information from the Commonwealth on that. And again, even for 1A it’s clear that people who are not just employed by for instance an aged care facility but those who provide care within that facility. So I’m thinking visiting general practitioners or visiting allied health practitioners who are actually going into a residential aged care facility. And so their work is taking them there. They are part of the 1A group. So there is some detail available but I’m sure more will be coming. And as a state we’re working very closely to try and get that data because we know people are thirsty for more information.

– Yeah. And thank you. And the next question I’ve got well sits around a different cohort. I suspect she might have a similar answer but one of the questions that’s come through around early childhood educators and whether they’re going to be part of the essential worker rollout as well.

– So again, and this is another group that, I mean, we Jade and I, and a whole team, in fact, fielding a lot of these questions and that’s for very good reason it shows people are interested and it shows people are keen to get vaccinated. And so we love to get these questions. I think partly for the reasons I was talking about with children and the risk of COVID, we it appears the actual risk of infection not just illness is lower in children for reasons we don’t completely understand, but furthermore there is close contact and we understand that people are keen to see where they fit along that spectrum the broader education sector and including early childhood education or care is one that isn’t specifically covered in the Commonwealth prioritisation index to date. And it’s one of those areas of clarification that we’re really seeking with our Commonwealth colleagues. I think it’s fair to say. What I would suggest is that if people have got ongoing questions that aren’t they’re unable to address when they go to the Commonwealth resources online they can feed those questions back to the Commonwealth but we’re also happy to hear them too. And we can feed them into our state process to try and feed back to our common Commonwealth colleagues because we don’t want people not knowing how to address these questions going forward. Jade, do you have anything else you’d like to add to that one?

– I guess I was just keen to sort of connect the thinking around prioritisation to dose supply. So if you think about the Pfizer vaccine has been mentioned we’ve purchased as a state through the we’ve purchased as a country through the Commonwealth government approximately 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. We’ve purchased approximately 15 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which we can also manufactured domestically. So questions around prioritisation is also linked to how we will scale up over the next couple of months. So we would like to hope that you know, that the details around the prioritisation and the focus will start to move to a question of how do we access it and when, and that there’ll be luckily, I guess a softening between the focus around prioritisation as we start to to receive much higher doses within Victoria.

– Thank you. And I think as well, I just wanted to acknowledge I’ve had a number of questions come through around how particular at risk will be targeted communicated with supporter to get the vaccine. And also who will be prioritised. I just wanted to flag this as well for everyone listening. So it’s around they questions range from migrant communities, asylum seekers, refugees, prisons and youth justice facilities those experiencing homelessness, Aboriginal Victorians. So it’s a fairly broad, people are understandably thinking about the particular the people that they work with. I suspect you’ve probably covered the parts around looking at we’ve got the 1A cohort my understanding is am I correct in saying you’re going to be constantly analysing where it’s actually the Commonwealth government will be constantly analysing sort of who is prioritised next in the immunisation process? Is that correct?

– That is correct. And you’re right. It’s an interface between the overarching Commonwealth guidelines which we are seeking and getting more clarity on as we go forward. But secondly, even within that, thinking about 1A populations, we’re really focusing on our hotel quarantine workers and border workers and even amongst the critical health care staff our express focus in the first instance is those healthcare services who actually are who may be receiving people being transferred from hotel quarantine. Because again, we’re taking a very very evidence-based risk approach thinking who is most likely to be exposed to COVID-19. And then the parallel question if someone were exposed to COVID-19, who is at greatest risk of the most serious outcomes, and that matrix is really what’s informing the Commonwealth thinking but also our sub prioritisation here in Victoria and more information will be coming out on this very regularly I suspect. Jade you were about to say something I think.

– I was just going to sort of add, I guess we recognise that despite cohorts coming on online or being invited later in the year, the time to engage is really now. So we’ve been, Ben and I’s team we’ve really structured our engagement approaching in terms of key work streams. So we have kind of a service provider work stream but one that’s looking at sort of priority populations. One that’s looking at place so keen to kind of connect engagement leads with the cost members and start to start a process where we can best inform but then help us get some feedback around designing systems which are going to help us achieve reach amongst those that are most vulnerable.

– It might be great post the webinars today as well to have a conversation about that. So we can hold perhaps specific conversations around that because I’m just thinking, for example some of the questions coming through from homelessness services around, will it be funding for outreach, obviously we’ve for Aboriginal Victorians in terms of, for Accos and others as well. So it’d be good to have a conversation around that. And we might look at setting up some specific conversations to really work through those particular issues as well because it sounds like it’s work that’s well underway but there’s also lots to go through and also very particular nuance for certain groups, as well is that fair?

– Yeah, definitely.

– Yeah. And just picking up on that. So again, the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Sector is one that the Commonwealth is directly responsible for and that’s coordinated with NACCHO to provide that program to Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations in particular. And we’ve been having meetings with the CEOs of those Accos coordinated by NACCHO so that we’re providing what information we can but it is a little challenging for us because the communications are predominantly coming from the Commonwealth to those programs. But we’re really keen to stand by and support in any way we can, because there’s a key priority populations for all of us and we want to make sure that we’re giving as much information and support as we can.

– Fantastic. Thank you. I’ve got a question, a slightly different direction at the moment as well, and bear with me. So I’m literally reading from another screen. What’s the advice on how consent is attained for residents who lack decision-making capacity and don’t have anyone else, whether it’s an appointed person or a relevant family member to consent on their behalf?

– So there’s some specific guidance has been provided around consent, and particularly with a focus on the aged care sector that’s available from the Commonwealth. That consent process isn’t necessarily document documentary, it can be verbal consent, but there is some statements around that saying that particularly in the aged care sector, documentary consent is preferred and that it works through the setting of someone who doesn’t have the capacity to consent for their own health care which is clearly something that is a broader issue well beyond COVID vaccine and beyond COVID sorry beyond vaccines in general. This is something that many of the sectors that are represented here clearly worked through and are experts at handling these issues to make sure that people get the care they need but that we, that principles of informed consent are respected to the latter. So this is really grafting onto that existing consent process but specific guidance has been provided around the consent process for COVID-19 vaccines.

– Thank you, and obviously that advice also extends beyond aged care. So looking at other settings too. Thank you. In terms of, I’m pretty sure you touched on this at the beginning, but a question has come through around where the individuals will bulk bill it at clinics GP clinics, et cetera, that traditionally don’t bulk bill. I know you’ve said that vaccine is free. Does that mean, for example, someone can go to their GP and get their vaccine for free when they would normally be charged to visit their GP?

– So this, again, I mean, this is very much a question for the Commonwealth and it’s something that’s been put to the Commonwealth. I know that there’s been some messages coming out from the Commonwealth government saying that they expect that practices that are selected as part of the expression of interest for general practices to provide vaccines don’t restrict it for instance, to their usual patient pool that they have to accept patients from or people to be vaccinated outside their usual. So if they’ve got closed books for their practice that’s not going to cut it for the COVID-19 vaccine. There has been some statements in the public domain around the MBS rebates and how they cover the vaccination process. But honestly, from as a state government perspective, we can’t comment on the MBS rules that the Commonwealth is seeking to apply in this space. There has been some public statements made but I wouldn’t want to commit our Commonwealth colleagues to any particular cause of action. Not that I could, if I wanted even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to.

– Not the power that you should have.

– Should or have.

– Should. Another question actually touches on that the federal and state combination, which is in terms of looking at how I guess, and you’ve touched on these to a degree but it’s looking at how the state rollout and the federal rollout are going to intersect on the ground. So thinking very specifically about Commonwealth run facilities that are in Victoria where do you think I guess your kind of guidance on how you think that will roll out knowing that I suspect it might change a little bit over time as the rollout the pace picks up as well?

– So I guess from a departmental perspective there are obviously sort of forums for us to work together around what are the key pieces of infrastructure that are being required? What does it mean for communications and engagement and one of the kind of learnings that we can start to collate recognising that we’re looking to serve the needs of the disability community with disabilities and those that are older Victorians irrespective of the setting within which they live. So we’re obviously sharing information around the timing of activity and collating sort of learning so that we sort of can collectively improve.

– Thank you, bear with me. I’m jumping just a bit here. So I’m trying to capture the questions that are coming in as well as those that sort of come through with anything more thematic and how I’ve captured them. One of the questions that’s come through is around one someone understanding that we want to protect frontline workers, but also thinking around making sure that we, we prevent transmission. The question is wouldn’t it make more sense to vaccinate those who’d be more likely to have really poor outcomes of catching the virus such as immune compromised people as well.

– Yeah. So I think I answered that one in the chat as well while we were, while we were going. But it’s a really important point. I think if I can be clear about this. We’re priotizing both. So the reason that aged care residents are being vaccinated as in the 1A cohort is because they have significant risk of adverse outcomes as we’ve seen tragically in Victoria in the last year with COVID-19 but it also contributes to protecting, from COVID getting into the aged care setting at all in the first instance. The reason why people with medical underlying medical conditions or with disability are included in the 1B group is because of that very risk of adverse outcomes is higher in those Victorians than it is for those without medical co-morbidities. So it’s both, it’s a risk based approach but it’s also risk of serious outcomes. And so both of those are informing the prioritisation. One thing, one point I would make, again I think it’s a really important one. The best way we can protect every Victorian is by stopping the virus, getting in, in the first place. Now Victoria has done in the Victorian people I should say the Victorian community up there amongst very few examples globally of when community transmission is established and ongoing that it’s actually been stopped. And Victoria has an absolute, honestly, the efforts of the Victorian community to do this are globally recognised. The last thing we want to see is for us to lose that. And so by protecting our frontline workers by protecting our hotel quarantine workers by protecting our border workers as they protect us through their work we’re also helping prevent from COVID-19 from getting in to the community. So I would just make that point. I think we’re all at less risk if we bring the risk down as low as possible. And that’s not just about the vaccine it’s about access to PPE. It’s about the environment that we’re working in. It’s about all of those settings. It’s the daily testing that they’re all doing. These really are heroes, as a healthcare worker in the hospitals, during the second wave here in Victoria the community was really behind us and really we all all my colleagues felt so hugely supported by Victoria but the frontline of the battle now really is in a hotel quarantine. And can I also say providing care to the people who are in the quarantine hotels, those residents who are under extreme pressure and also have been through some pretty terrible circumstances overseas often. And so if we can look after the people looking after those very, very vulnerable Victorians then we’re protecting ourselves, all of us.

– Thank you. I’ve got quite a few questions coming through about different aspects of the immunisation process. One is, can my employer make me get vaccinated? Just sort of the flip side of many the questions you’ve been answering I guess the demand as well.

– So, and again, answering this in a couple of ways and I’d be interested. I mean, Jade might have other sort of aspects you’d like to bring in here. So neither Jade nor I are industrial law experts. So let me get that again, declared the outset unless Jade’s got a degree obviously that I wasn’t aware of. No. Okay. So from a public health perspective, so from the Chief Health Officer from public health authorities in Victoria, interstate other jurisdictions and indeed Commonwealth, there is no mandatory vaccinations. So from a public health perspective there is no compulsory vaccination for anyone in Australia. Now this that’s not the question you asked, however, the question you asked is what about employers and their ability to require as a condition of employment that their staff be vaccinated? Now, I’m not able to answer that categorically because I’m not an industrial lawyer and I’m not a industrial relations expert. I am unaware of any example currently in the nation where that is occurring. I also think there’s a significant downside and this is probably something I’d really like to get Jade’s perspective on. There’s a real downside in compelling something and you lose a lot of goodwill. And if you can do the engagement answering people’s questions giving them time to think things through giving them all the information that they can. I think that’s a, so much more effective way of influencing people’s behaviour in a health protective way than telling me you have to do this, or you’ve lost a job but I’d be interested to hear what Jade’s thoughts are on that aspect.

– Yeah, I guess upfront, really do recognise that 2020 was a really scary time. So the task ahead for us and really thinking about the vaccine is that a kind of a positive and a step forward we’d say that engagement messaging would be really framed around that trust and confidence and also the element that we all have in terms of collective responsibility. So what’s the role of sort of 6 million Victorians in this question outside of that mandating labour that we’d want to use as the last resort.

– Yeah. Thank you. And I think as well, that’s probably, as you say which some of these are sort of more industrial questions I just wanted to flag we’ve got other questions that have been asked around if you’re in a blended, the responsibilities of an employer if you’ve got some people who are vaccinated in a workplace place, some people who are not from what you’re saying, you’re not in a sort of position to be able to answer those questions. So there are things that we’ll probably need to get some legal advice around and share that information separately as well. One of the other questions which I think is a great one around for us as a community sector, as well as what do you think is the best way for us as community service organisations, I guess, to build trust in the vaccine program and to really, to counter some of the misinformation that’s out there as well?

– So I’d say it simply is have a conversation about the vaccine and to have some simple key messages to inform that and to also be clear around what are the other sort of trusted sources of information that we can draw upon to help community in practise. I think it’s as simple as having a conversation about the vaccine and making sure that there’s clarity about the convenience of the process for when people are invited to participate.

– I think as well too, it’s going to be the matter of us continually working together as also any messages you’ve got. We can look at how we put that out there working more broadly across the membership. So almost wherever someone goes they’re able to get accurate, clear information. And then obviously very personalised information from that the health practitioners that they work with wherever they might be situated.

– Yep. We can’t wait to work with you on that.

– And that individualised approach is so important. We know that people respond to evidence. Well, people think about evidence in different ways let alone responding to it in different ways. And there’s different types of evidence. And I think picking up on something that Jade said, I think for engagement, especially in this space where you’ve got people with hesitancy or uncertainty or might have beliefs that we wouldn’t share the first part is listening and actually listening to why people feel the way they do. And not just assuming that by communicating evidence and numbers and facts and statistics that you’re going to get everyone across the line because we clearly know that’s not the case.

– Yeah, absolutely. A couple more questions here around the vaccinations in terms of one being whether the Pfizer and Astra vaccines are safe for use in pregnant women or women trying to get pregnant and also for women who are breastfeeding as well.

– Yep. I’m happy to speak to that. So people, women who are trying to get pregnant, safe no effect on fertility, no need to delay vaccination if you’re trying to get pregnant. So women who are breastfeeding, safe. ATAGI have come out with guidelines saying that breastfeeding that the vaccines have no impact on breastfeeding women or their infants and as a consequence, breastfeeding or vaccination should not be deferred on the basis of breastfeeding. For pregnant women we’re currently not recommending routine vaccination and that’s not because we know there’s a problem. It’s because we just don’t have enough evidence to categorically state that there’s no impact of the vaccines in the setting of pregnancy. Now, overseas vaccines have been given to pregnant women. That’s sometimes because of the risk of COVID-19. Again, the tragic scenes we’re seeing overseas the risk of COVID-19 is extreme in many settings. And so that individualised approach to risk and benefit was taken and the vaccine was given and we are yet, or I am yet to hear of any evidence that suggested is a problem in the setting of pregnancy, but we just don’t have enough evidence yet. So to be clear, breastfeeding, no problems with vaccination. Planning pregnancy or trying to get pregnant, no problems with vaccination. For people, for women who are pregnant we’re not recommending routine vaccination at this time.

– Thank you. That’s brilliant. We had a few questions coming in around that as well. One other question, which comes to eligibility is around with the people who are on temporary protection, visas and foreign nationals who are living in Australia at the moment whether they will be eligible for the vaccine as well?

– So the Commonwealth statements in this place, they’ve said that the vaccine is free for all Australian citizens, permanent residents and temporary visa holders. So if someone’s in Australia on any visa, we believe that means that the Commonwealth has taken the position that they are eligible for free vaccine. So as long as someone’s got any sort of visa, then they’re eligible.

– Thank you. And in terms of will people have I think this has been a question that’s been playing out quite publicly around whether the people will have a choice of vaccine or will it be different at different distribution centres will all doses be the same type? If you’re able to talk to that that would be really helpful. We’ve had a few questions coming in around that as well.

– So I’m sorry. There’s no choice involved. So you can’t go along and go around your, go on the shelf and see which vaccine looks matches best with your preferred sort of vaccination appearance, et cetera. No, there’s no choice. It’s one vaccine or the other. And in fact, the vast majority of us are going to get AstraZeneca just for the reasons that Jade mentioned. There’s five times as many doses of that have been purchased by Australia in the first instance in the next few months, and indeed the Novavax vaccine which we haven’t spoken about much, cause we’ve yet to get it approved or obviously available. There’s another 50 million of doses of that one in the wings as well. So most people will get AstraZeneca. You can’t mix and match. You’ve got to have the same vaccine both times cause we don’t know if mixing and matching works. And most places will have AstraZeneca only. The Pfizer vaccine as I mentioned previously you need to store it at negative 70.It’s only going to be through those hospital immunisation hubs, those hubs through agreements between the Commonwealth and the manufacturer can’t have AstraZeneca vaccine through the same hub. So know that there’ll be one vaccine or the other.

– Thank you. And just as well to, I think there’s a few questions coming through around the references and guides that, that Ben yourself and Jade sharing and referencing today. We just want to let people know that we will send out all of those links. So don’t feel like you’ve kind of rapidly got to write it down, et cetera. We’ll send that out that out to you and make it available on our website as well. In terms of looking at as well with the vaccine should only another question I’ve had is which I think leads from your last question around choice, but around should the most vulnerable get the most efficient vaccine rather than the one that’s 67% effective?

– Yeah. And I think I posted on this one on the chat as well. Not at all, not at all, just we’re in parallel Emma and that’s a good thing. So I think the first thing to remember is that that 67% sort of efficacy statement was for when you take all comers and all schedules, et cetera. The evidence from the AstraZeneca trials that have been released in the more recent evidence that’s been published but not yet peer reviewed in the Lancet is that if you delay the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine by 12 weeks, the efficacy increases to above 80%. Compared to less than 60% at a shorter time. Well then less than six weeks I think was the comparitor there. So ATAGI has actually recommended that we do that in Australia that we space the vaccine for AstraZeneca by 12 weeks. And we’ll hit that greater than 80% efficacy if that’s the case. The second point is again just emerged evidence from the UK, not yet peer reviewed. So we’ve got to take everything with a grain of salt, but that in terms of prevention of hospitalisation in the United Kingdom the AstraZeneca vaccine has had appears to be performing better than the Pfizer vaccine in terms of the percentage protection against hospitalisation for those who have been vaccinated. So again, we need to take all of that with a grain of salt but I don’t think it’s as clear cut as saying one’s 95 and one 60. It’s not bad at all. And we really not just Australia but every country is urgently trying to compile as much evidence as we can. And there’s a lot more evidence out there now that tens of millions of people have been vaccinated with these vaccines globally.

– It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? In terms of, I guess it’s your site in terms of the information that’s been gathered literally by the hour that’s influencing decisions that are being made. It’s nothing like working at pace. One of the questions I have here which again might be more of an industrial question. So apply which of these it is but one question that’s come through is what about clients refuse to be sorted by a non-vaccinated employee? Any thoughts that you’ve got around that?

– Yeah. Okay. So again, I think, I mean I dunno if Jade’s got a perspective, but choice of individuals regarding the healthcare or aged care whatever the, I guess the service provider that that is providing a service based on their vaccination status. I guess for me that again, as a non-expert that would bring up a lot of issues around confidentiality. So what is the privacy implications of an individual having their vaccination status known by the the people that provide a care to or even their colleagues. So there’s some privacy principles there I think that come in. There’s the other aspects that if someone has is unable to be vaccinated, for whatever reason there’s actually a very, very short list of those. But for instance, we spoke about pregnant women. So does that mean that a pregnant woman should be discriminated against on the basis of not being able to be vaccinated because we can’t recommend it at this point in time. So I think there’s some equity considerations there. I think this is a little bit of a fraught one. My gut feeling is that people would not be in a position to make that re to assert that choice but I am a completely uninformed individual in that space. And so it’s probably one that we need to take up with people who actually can give you a proper answer.

– Thank you. And I think it shows the that reality doesn’t in terms of the sort of the ethical lens through which number, so many decisions are having to be made and made at pace and worked through it pace as well. In terms of, a question that has come through as well as around how COVID the COVID vaccines relate to the flu vaccines and whether the sort of the waiting period between one and the other?

– Yep. I can take that one. Jade knows these answers as well but she likes the sound of my voice. That’s why she’s holding back. So with the flu vaccine, the precautionary advice from ATAGI at the moment is that you need to space the flu vac or in fact the COVID vaccines from any other vaccine including the flu vaccine by at least 14 days. so you can’t get them on the same day or you’re not supposed to, and it’s not recommended that they be given within 14 days of each other. That’s purely because we just don’t know what the effect is on efficacy of the COVID vaccine if you do that or indeed of the flu vaccine, if you do that. I suspect that as more evidence becomes available that will change and that time interval will drop and it may even be the case that they can be co-administered. I do understand that there’s some work being done internationally on development of combined flu and COVID vaccine actually but we’re a long way off that yet. So can’t be co-administered, should be spaced by 14 days or more. And interestingly, the AstraZeneca vaccine with that 12 week dose spacing does mean that our flu vaccine program might be able to go in between those doses because the flu vaccine will be available probably from early April. So the last thing we want to do is people wait having to wait for flu vaccine for five weeks because of they’ve been COVID backside against COVID. So I think some of the programmatic implications there’ll be eased by that 12 weeks spacing.

– And good I think to keep pointing out that we just keep learning on this front. So there’s some things that as we kind of catch up perhaps the future forums there’ll be some more information that we’re able to share that just isn’t knowing at the moment as well. In terms of, there’s a question here around what consideration and planning has occurred on how the state will partner with local government in standing up mass vaccination centres. So looking at current testing centres that are split between sort of retail, LGAs and properties, and I guess whether the state has figured out an ask for local government to support mass vaccinations as well?

– So the work ahead of us is to think about how the AstraZeneca product will be rolled out. And so that’s where we’re working with the Commonwealth around one of the kind of points of distribution that are allowable in terms of the AstraZeneca product. That will give us a bit of a steer around the points that are allowable or the maximum number of points it may be allowable within the Victorian context from which questions of how do we make this work are really important to us. So we’re getting a bit of a sense and you refer to the general practice expression of interest process a little bit earlier, but a sense of, what’s the work that’s like likely to be done with the sort of general practice community pharmacy echoed GP respiratory clinic that gives us a base for breadth of access. And I guess what we’re trying to do is what is work together around sort of consortium that will enable us to deal with a surge response within communities. So we’re working through some of those processes at the moment and keen to leverage the expertise that exists across the system to do this.

– Fantastic. And I guess when we look at some of the local government immunisation programs that happen for some, infants, for example that there’s some models, et cetera that I imagine can be leveraged off considerably as well.

– [Jade] Yeah, definitely.

– Thank you. We’re getting some questions as well. I’m mindful that they’re quite individual questions in terms of whether someone has, so one question is is it safe for a person with HIV and a current but stable case of cancer to get the vaccine? I’m wondering whether you’re in a position to answer that question today whether that’s something you’d encourage someone to speak with their health professional about?

– So yes, to both Emma, everyone should always speak to their health professional if they’ve got questions because there’s no way that a forum like this can adequately address all the individual concerns and parameters, but in general principles, I can answer. And that is that we have no signal around these vaccines being unsafe in the setting of immunodeficiency whether that’s acquired immunodeficiency or otherwise. So no evidence that it’s unsafe. As is the case for any vaccine if someone has significant immunodeficiency then their response to the vaccine may be not as effective. And so as a consequence, they might not have the same degree of protection against COVID-19 as someone whose immune system was functioning normally. But we also know that people with immunodeficiency had significantly higher rates of severe COVID disease and mortality as well. So again, it’s a really key population we want to protect. We have no evidence of problems with the vaccine and there has been trials done specifically in South Africa of these vaccines in people living with HIV/AIDS. And there’ve been other people with immunodeficiency in some of those clinical trials elsewhere as well. So no reason to not get vaccinated but the efficacy is still open to question.

– Thank you. And perhaps one of our last questions I’m mindful, I think you and Jade have done an incredible job of answering all of the questions we’ve been throwing at you today. So I want to just ask for a little bit if it’s possibly more specific about the plans of vaccinations in prisons we spoke about it earlier in terms of saying that there’s particular cohorts that I know that you’re still working through at the moment around what that program might be. Do you have any detail around the plans for vaccinations in prisons at this stage? Or is it something that you were working through?

– Yes, so we are working with DJCS and Justice Health around models of service delivery that will enable us to sort of efficiently and effectively reach both staff and clients. So certainly strategies and conversations. Live at the moment and it’s actually, that’s my next meeting.

– Thank you. Look, I might wrap up with a couple of key comments. One is it’s really clear should we’ve had lots of sort of workforce and industrial relations issues come up throughout all of the questions as well. So I think it would be great if we can look at VCOSS is happy to commit to looking at who we can have come on with us to help sort of work through some of those issues as well. Ben and Jade, we certainly would look forward to holding more sessions with you both in terms of webinars more generally but also perhaps for some specific, sections of our membership as well. I think that would be incredibly helpful. I just can’t thank both of you enough. We’ve been throwing questions you’ve done your presentation. We’ve been throwing questions at you for an hour. You haven’t missed a beat. You’ve been really direct in responding to questions. Really, really appreciate that. The work that you’re doing, the work that the public health team is doing is just phenomenal. So any generosity and openness in terms of saying look how happy to do whatever you need us to. So we’re really looking forward to continuing to work with you. I want to say a very sincere thank you. I also really want to thank the VCOSS team who are working behind the scenes and we’ll call out Ryan and Amy in particular who have been dealing with multiple tech things or making everything look as smooth as it possibly can on the surface. I’d like to really thank the Auslan interpreters, who’ve been phenomenal today as always, it’s just so critical that we have you there. So a huge thank you to you. As I’ve said, we’ve recorded this today. It will be shared more broadly and it will also be captioned as well. We’re aware of how critically important it is to make this information fully accessible as well. So it’s my chance to as well, thank for all of you who’ve taken the time to join with us. We look forward to continuing to work with you over what is a time I think, to feel pretty optimistic on the back of 2020. So a huge thank you to all of you and look forward to seeing you again soon. Have a great afternoon.

Working safe

• WorkSafe’s guide to exposure to coronavirus in workplaces.
• The Federal Government is offering workers across the health, aged care, disability and childcare sectors access to a free online training module on infection control. This training module takes about 30 minutes to complete and covers the fundamentals of infection prevention and control (IPC) for COVID-19.

Pandemic policy template

• The Australian Institute of Community Directors has produced a free Epidemic/Pandemic Policy template that you can download and tailor to your organisation. Access it here.

Governance guidance

• The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) has released fresh guidance of what organisations should do if they’re struggling to hold regular board meetings of officially complete their Annual Information Statement. More details here.

Posters

• Printable poster: Wash your hands regularly poster 
• Printable poster: Cover your cough and sneeze poster  

Diverse language or fully accessible resources.

• Information about Coronavirus translated into multiple languages by Ethnolink.
• Easy English resources on CoronaVirus, produced by the NDIA. 
• The Council for Intellectual Disability has produced three easy read documents to assist people with intellectual disability during COVID-19:
  • Staying safe from Coronavirus COVID-19   
  • Looking after your mental health   
  • Staying at home during Coronavirus   
• Health Translations is an online library which enables health practitioners and those working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities to easily find free translated health information.
• UNICEF Australia has released ‘Eight tips to help comfort and protect children.’
• Federal Government video and poster campaign on Coronavirus.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) and your rights

• Consumer Affairs Victoria has established a COVID-19 page providing information about a range of areas regulated by CAV including: housing, evictions, products and services, event cancellations and refunds.
• The Energy and Water Ombudsman Victoria handle most complaints about energy and water issues, providing Victorian customers with free, accessible, informal and fast dispute resolution. Further information is available here.
• JusticeConnect’s Not-for-profit Law team is delivering tailored legal support for community organisations and not-for-profits that are grappling with complex legal issues arising from measures to contain COVID-19. These may include ensuring client safety, securing data with increasingly remote workforces, and managing cancelled public events.
• A range of legal problems are emerging following the rollout of measures such as quarantining people to limit the spread of the virus. Victoria Legal Aid can provide help over the phone 1300 792 387 (please note that there may have longer wait times). Advice can also be provided through a live webchat service here.

Your mental health and safety

• Beyond Blue has produced a guide to mental wellbeing during the Coronavirus outbreak. The Beyond Blue Support Service offers short term counselling and referrals by phone and webchat on 1300 22 4636.
• Lifeline is available 24 hours/7 days on 13 11 14, by text: 0477 13 11 14 (6pm – midnight AEDT, 7 nights) and online chat (7pm – midnight, 7 nights)
• 1800RESPECT is operating during COVID-19 and a list of safety apps for mobile phones can be found at their website.
• The safe steps 24/7 family violence crisis response phone line will continue to operate as usual 1800 015 188.
• DVRCV and DVVic are collating information, resources and responses to frequently asked questions on COVID-19 and family violence at the Lookout website.
• inTouch (Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence) has launched a COVID-19 information hub for women from migrant and refugee communities experiencing family violence, and for family violence service providers and practitioners.