Weekly COVID news at a glance

(AUS) Regional community centre has vaccine success

A community centre in Wodonga on the New South Wales-Victoria border is being acknowledged as having run a successful regional COVID vaccination program, especially with its multicultural residents. The Albury-Wodonga region currently has a vaccination rate among the highest in the country, with the community centre partnership key in achieving this. 

The initiative is a partnership between the Albury-Wodonga Ethnic Communities Council and Albury-Wodonga Health, funded by the Victorian government. Community leaders are able to speak in many languages other than English, including Swahili, Nepali, Hindi, French and dialects of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Multicultural residents of the area and participants of the program say they have found it important to have questions answered and misinformation dispelled in their native languages, overall making vaccination more accessible.

(AUS) Review vaccine booster time

Health Minister Greg Hunt has asked the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation to review health advice on vaccine boosters as uncertainty grows over Omicron, a new variant of COVID-19.

To be eligible for a COVID-19 booster shot, you must be aged 18 and over and have had a second dose of a COVID-19 at least six months ago. The Australian government will seek advice about whether the six-month timeframe for a booster shot should be shortened.

The UK has already brought forward the eligibility for booster shots to five months after the second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in an effort to speed up the program.

(AUS) Funding for vulnerable vaccine groups

The Victorian Government has announced new funding to help vulnerable Victorians get vaccinated. Eligible community organisations and neighbourhood houses can apply for up to 20,000-dollars to make it easier for people to get vaccinated and to reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. 

The funding will help address any practical efforts such as assisting vaccination appointment booking or arranging childcare for parents during appointments.

The program will assist Victorians from vulnerable groups, such as people living with disability, seniors, multicultural communities, social housing residents and those affected by domestic violence. Funding is also available for organisations and programs to increase vaccination rates by addressing vaccine misinformation. 

Minister for Multicultural Affairs Ros Spence announced the two and a half million-dollar package on Monday. For more information, visit the Victorian government website and search for the local community access grants program.

(Worldwide) Israel seals borders

Israel is barring entry to all foreign nationals, in one the most drastic of travel restrictions imposed by countries around the world in an attempt to slow the spread of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Israel’s coronavirus cabinet has authorised a series of measures including banning entry by foreigners, red-listing travel to 50 African countries, and making quarantine mandatory for all Israelis arriving from abroad. The entry ban came into effect at midnight local time (10pm GMT) on Sunday.

(Worldwide) US could face ‘fifth wave’

Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections amid rising cases and stagnating vaccination rates. He also warned that the newly discovered Omicron variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility.

On Sunday evening, shortly after the first Omicron cases in North America were confirmed in Canada, the White House said Biden met Fauci and other advisers on returning to Washington from holiday in Nantucket.

Fauci, a statement said, “informed the president that while it will take approximately two more weeks to have more definitive information on the transmissibility, severity, and other characteristics of the variant, he continues to believe that existing vaccines are likely to provide a degree of protection against severe cases of Covid”.

(Worldwide) Calls for lifting of Omicron travel bans

South Africa’s president has condemned travel bans enacted against his country and its neighbours over the new coronavirus variant Omicron.

Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted. The UK, EU and US are among those who have imposed travel bans.

Omicron has been classed as a “variant of concern”. Early evidence suggests it has a higher re-infection risk. The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month and then reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) last Wednesday.

The variant is responsible for most of the infections found in South Africa’s most populated province, Gauteng, over the last two weeks, and is now present in all other provinces in the country.