Bass Coast Health is not only urging the community to be vaccinated against COVID-19 but also to follow the Victorian Public Health Directives to keep our community safe.
The directives ask us to stay at home except for the 5 reasons – essential shopping, caregiving or medical care (including getting a test), authorised work; exercise or to get vaccinated. In addition, it is extremely important that everyone wear a face mask, practise physical distancing and sanitise hands regularly to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread in our community.
“I encourage the community to be vaccinated as soon as possible to minimise the risk of them not only contracting COVID-19, but also to reduce the severity of the symptoms should they unfortunately be infected,” Bass Coast Health CEO Jan Child said.
“We know that people who are vaccinated can still catch the virus and they can still spread the virus to unvaccinated people, including people they love. What vaccination can do is reduce the severity of the disease and reduce the incidence of death.
“For these reasons, even if you are vaccinated, you must continue to follow the Public Health advice, keep a constant watch on the exposure sites to make sure you or someone you love hasn’t worked there, and if you have the slightest of symptoms, you must get tested straight away.
“We can see how fast the Delta variant of the virus spreads just by watching the situation unfolding in other jurisdictions. This is a very fast moving virus and every person must do the right thing, to keep our local community safe.
“BCH will continue to maintain testing tents at both Wonthaggi and Phillip Island and will extend hours where needed. We will also expand our vaccination service where we can, noting that we are still limited because of vaccination availability. We have designated BCH as a walk-in site for some eligible groups, but we only have so much space, staff and vaccine available, and so we still encourage people to book to avoid queueing at the Wonthaggi Town Hall. Vaccination appointments can be booked online: https://portal.cvms.vic.gov.au/
“Most importantly, we ask people to be patient as we do what we can to expand our vaccination service. We know that people can get frustrated because of wait times; if you walk in and there is a line, please come back at another time. If you decide to stay in the line, please keep your distance from others in the line and please don’t be disrespectful to our vaccination team. We are all working as hard as we can to get our community vaccinated but we ask for your kindness and your patience as our staff do their best,” Ms Child said.
The Community Vaccination Centre at Wonthaggi Town Hall is this week open 9am-4pm Monday, 9am-8pm Tuesday, 9am-6pm Wednesday, 9am-8pm Thursday and 9am-4pm Friday.
Please check your eligibility here: https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/vaccine
Health, disability and aged care workers can walk in at any time for Pfizer.