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The performance of the various vaccination systems does seem to vary a bit.
Amid the tech problems at other sites, a friend of mine reports from the Melbourne Showgrounds that she arrived as a walk-in at 7.30am and was set to be jabbed a few hours later.
I had a similar conversation with another friend last night who had scooped up our home-schooling materials for us. After one big wait that ended without an answer on the hotline on Thursday, she tried again on Friday morning and secured an appointment within minutes.
Clearly there is strain on the system in the face a massive scale-up in demand but obviously there is still an ability to get your shot if you persevere.
All of the five new locally-acquired cases announced in Victoria have been linked to known cases.
Victoria’s deputy chief health officer Allen Cheng revealed the news to The Age this morning, saying it was reassuring that all the cases in the outbreak, now at 35, have been traced back to other confirmed infections.
He said even though it was concerning that some of the people with coronavirus may have been in the community while infectious, there were yet to be any mystery cases identified.
“What has been what has been reassuring to date is that all the people that we’re diagnosing are people that we know about, so they are contacts,” Professor Cheng said.
“Sometimes they have been in the community while they’ve been infectious… but it is an encouraging sign we are not picking up people where we have no idea where they got it from.”
Epidemiology Professor Jodie McVernon from the Doherty Institute spoke to Nine’s Today show this morning where she said the surge of a “very welcome” sign of acceptance of the vaccine from the public.
She said vaccines would help deliver the herd immunity required to head off lockdowns but there needed to be an acceptance coronavirus would eventually come to this country.
“We can’t lock up fortress Australia and wait for the storm to pass, it’s with us, it’s around us in the world,” she said.
“The infection will be here, we can’t avoid it all together.”
There’s also been technical issues affecting the mass vaccination centre at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton causing delays and the refusal of walk-ins.
St Vincent’s hospital issued a statement similar to the one put out by the convention centre not long ago saying there had been “technical difficulties”.
“Vaccine update: Our doors are now open at the Royal Exhibition Building. Thanks for your patience!,” the hospital said in a tweet.
“We were delayed opening due to technical difficulties with the booking system. Bookings only at this stage. We’ll share another update once we are able to open up for walk-ins.”
The vaccination hub at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre is at a standstill after its technology crashed on Saturday morning, leaving walk-ins with a six-hour wait.
Queues at the Melbourne Convention Centre on Saturday morning.
The hundreds of people in line were told the systems had failed and nurses at the site had reverted to paper files to try and get through vaccinations.
Those in the walk-in line were told it could be more than six hours before they got the jab. It comes after Victoria completed more than 21,000 vaccinations on Friday.
Leigh de Stefanis said when she arrived at the convention centre at 8am on Saturday, there were already 400 to 500 people in the queue.
“People have been coming in thick and fast, there was maybe just 100 people in the ‘booked appointment’ queue for the under 50s, and just 20 people in the over 50s booking line,” she said.
“I was lucky - we were booked in for 8.54am and I was in by 9am, but others got here earlier and had to wait, I think because of it being paper-based.
Credit:Matt Golding
“I’m actually quite emotional about getting the vaccine. It’s an amazing effort on the part of so many, I love being given the chance to see a whole heap of people rocking up to get vaccinated.”
Calls to Victoria’s coronavirus vaccine hotline were already ringing out at 8am when the service opened.
The Department of Health was contacted for comment.
If you want to see just how big the testing response has been to the current outbreak check out this graphic.
About 150,000 people have had a test in the past three days.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has thanked the community and health workers for their effort after yesterday’s record vaccination and testing results.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you all testing sites, path labs and everyone who stepped up to test. Remember, you can still test during this lockdown. Mildest of symptoms? Just test,” Professor Sutton said on Twitter on Saturday morning.
Labor opposition leader Anthony Albanese held a press conference on Saturday morning discussing the federal government’s approach to the coronavirus you can watch below:
Victoria has recorded five new local cases overnight and two new cases acquired overseas in hotel quarantine.
The state completed a record 56,624 coronavirus tests on Friday and Victorian authorities administered a record 21,626 vaccine doses.
There’s some long days and nights ahead for Victorians and we know that lockdown is certainly a time to catch up on some streaming.
Our culture team put together a list of the best shows of 2021 so far including: the doco Brazen Hussies, Tina Fey’s spoof Girl5eva, off-beat New Zealand comedy Creamerie and drama It’s a Sin.
The best TV shows of 2021 so far.
You can check out their recommendations here.
Also on the list is The Virtues starring Stephen Graham. The five-star review of this drama is one of the best read culture pieces we’ve put up this year.
One that’s been getting a heavy workout in my house is the Friends reunion, which screened on Thursday and is available on Binge. Debbie Enker has written about today here arguing that the producers did well to opt for a reunion rather than a reboot.
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2021-05-29 00:46:13Z
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