A lonely road ahead for this delivery driver in Chippendale.Credit:Rhett Wyman
NSW Health’s Dr Jeremy McAnulty maintained listed local government areas of concern were being reviewed daily and the City of Sydney and Randwick had not yet met this threshold.
As with vaccination rates,there are significant variations among case numbers being recorded in suburbs:in the City of Sydney,the figures in Waterloo continue to climb,while in suburbs such as Erskineville there have been comparably fewer cases. In Randwick,most cases are being recorded in Maroubra.
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University of Sydney clinical epidemiologist Fiona Stanaway said,as has been observed across the city as a whole,lower socio-economic groups were more likely to catch the virus.
“In those suburbs where gentrification has happened,like Erskineville,people have jobs where they can stay at home,” she said. “It’s those people doing those lower paid,less secure jobs that get more exposure;they’re more likely to get it.”
Dr Stanaway said the push for vaccinations among younger people in the local government areas of concern had been successful,but people under 40 were still struggling to book in other parts of the city.
Associate Professor Holly Seale,a vaccine communications researcher at UNSW,agreed there had been issues with access for younger age groups,particularly those who did not receive targeted Pfizer doses or were only included in those programs recently,like Sydney and Randwick.
“In some LGAs it definitely is not that people have been hesitant,” she said,noting the publicity for small pop-up clinics in the inner and eastern suburbs had not been as significant as the promotion for big vaccination hubs,such as Qudos Bank Arena,in the west.
Randwick mayor Danny Said attributed the council’s lower vaccination rate to its younger population and the lack of Pfizer availability. He said he had written to the Premier and Health Minister requesting better vaccine access in the area several times throughout the lockdown.
Vaccination rates in the inner Sydney suburb of Erskineville are high.Credit:Nick Moir
“We are not an LGA of anti-vaxxers,we really do want to go out there and get it,” he said,noting he himself booked in for AstraZeneca at a GP months ago but was turned away because he was eligible for Pfizer shots (which he could only receive months later). “It’s just been hard.”
Less than a week afterRandwick residents were encouraged to receive a Pfizer shot at the Novotel Hotel in Brighton-le-Sands,the hub closed.
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A spokesperson for South Eastern Sydney Local Health District said the hub was always established on a short-term basis and attendees were booked in for their second dose at Hurstville Aquatic Centre.
In recent days,eastern suburbs state Labor MPs Ron Hoenig,Marjorie O’Neill and Michael Daley have called for NSW Health to open a mass vaccination centre for the area.
On Wednesday,data from the Australian Children’s Education&Care Quality Authority showed six childcare centres in the Randwick local government area were temporarily closed.
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