As Victoria's vaccination booking system struggles with overwhelming demand, Education Minister James Merlino says he wants Year 12 students to be jabbed before exams start in October, as a prority education vaccine covid covid19
Victorians are trying to book online COVID-19 vaccination appointments at the rate of 50,000 a minute, and more than 1.3 million people tried to contact the call centre to book slots after the state widened the availability of the Pfizer shot.
“So, there’ll be very strong communication to all students and staff across all our schools in Victoria … a particular message to our year 12 students, but also VCE staff, and staff who will be supervising the VCE exams – we also want them to get vaccinated.”“We’ll be asking the Commonwealth for additional supplies of the vaccine,” Mr Merlino said.
Melbourne local Jake Talevski, 19, jumped out of bed at 6.50am ready to grab one of the 450,000 Pfizer appointments coming online across the state at 7am. He said he refreshed the page a few times and then managed to secure a slot at Melbourne Showgrounds vaccination hub – all by just after 8am.Mr Talevski said he thought something similar to NSW’s COVID-19 situation could happen in Victoria, so he liked that the Pfizer vaccine had a shorter timeframe between doses compared with AstraZeneca.
“I think everyone went into [receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine] with a few questions but I spoke to my general practitioner and I felt fine – I think I felt lucky to get any vaccine that was available,” she said.“We’ve been waiting for supply for a long time.”
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