Five months and 75,000 doses after it was set up, the Canberra Airport COVID-19 vaccination hub will shut this Sunday, its job done.
“It’s a little sad that we’re closing,” said Katherine Wakefield, Canberra Health Services’ executive director, cancer and ambulatory care. “But I’m also proud that we can, because we’re in [an excellent] position in Canberra.”
As of today, 97.9 per cent of ACT residents aged 12 and older were double vaccinated. Many have already had their booster shot. As demand for vaccinations has eased, two mass vaccination clinics are not needed.
The airport clinic – the ACT’s second Pfizer vaccination hub, complementing the Garran surge centre – opened in mid-June.
That was the highest risk period Canberra had faced so far that year, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said at the time. The Delta strain had broken out in NSW, and the ACT Government had made face masks mandatory the day before. A little over a month later, on 12 August, the ACT entered a snap two-week lockdown that ending up lasting nine weeks.
Mr Barr announced that the airport hub would administer more than 1,500 Pfizer vaccinations each week, increasing to 3,000 as more doses were supplied.
In fact, the centre maintained an average of 3,500 vaccinations each week – and in September, at the height of the pandemic, administered 5,500 doses in a single week.
That, said ACT Health Minister, Rachel Stephen-Smith, was “an amazing testament to all the staff who have worked here, and the efficiency that Canberra Health Services managed to achieve in the vaccination program”.
“Everyone I know who came here was absolutely chuffed about the experience,” said Stephen Byron, CEO of the Capital Airport Group, which provided the building. “That built confidence in the program right through, because those who were vaccinated said it was good. That’s one of the major reasons we got to the level we did.”
The few remaining bookings at the Canberra Airport hub will be completed by Sunday. Any remaining forward bookings after that date have been moved to the AIS Arena COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Clinic.
The AIS Arena clinic and the Weston Creek Access and Sensory clinic (the vaccination hub for people with disabilities) will remain open. Vaccinations will also be administered through the Commonwealth’s primary care program. Ms Stephen-Smith said the paediatric program would open soon, once children under 11 become eligible for vaccination.
All staff at the airport hub will be redeployed to other vaccination or testing clinics or elsewhere within Canberra Health Services.
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