More arrivals for Tassie

COVID deal lifts number of overseas workers

TASMANIA will host an unspecified number of additional overseas seasonal workers on behalf of Victoria under an extended COVID quarantine deal, Premier Peter Gutwein says.

Mr Gutwein on Friday announced an extension of arrangements which in return has Victoria taking in Tasmanians arriving from overseas in hotel quarantine.

The agreement, which was meant to end in the middle of the year, will be extended after Prime Minister Scott Morrison appealed to states to do more.

“I’m firmly of the view that we would assist the national effort by ensuring Victoria has more quarantine space available which will assist them to bring more repatriated Australians back home,” Mr Gutwein said.

“The way that this has worked to date has been very successful. We’ve managed to assist Victoria with their seasonal workers at the same time it has been a good fit for Tasmania

in terms of our quarantining arrangements and we’ve kept Tasmanians safe.”

A flight with 159 seasonal workers was due to arrive in Hobart from Vanuatu overnight Friday. The workers are to be quarantined at the Ibis Hotel in Hobart.

The state government backed out of a pledge to host its “fair share” of Australians returning from overseas in January after four positive COVID-19 tests among passengers on the first of three planned flights. Instead, Tasmania did a deal with Victoria: that state would take returnees and Tasmania would host quarantine for 1500 low-risk Pacific Island seasonal workers bound for Victorian farms in the first half of 2021.

“At this point in time, we have safely quarantined 1225 seasonal workers safely and effectively and included in that around half — a little more than 600 — are the Victoria cohort of which we have another 900 to do, which was flagged to be completed by around the middle of this year,” Mr Gutwein said.

Health Department secretary Kathrine MorganWicks said the availability of vaccines was increasing around the state.

She said 42,374 doses had been delivered in state-run clinics, 7812 in aged care and 34,800 by general practitioners, the total accounting for 16 per cent of the population aged over 18. “This week it has been very positive to see the number of Tasmanians over 50 years of age who have taken up the offer of a free vaccine,’’ she said.

“Today our new Huonville clinic saw its first day of operation booked out.”

New clinics will operate in Rosny, Triabunna, Devonport, Latrobe and Smithton in coming days, as well as on the Bass Strait islands. The government-run clinics will be delivering the Pfizer vaccine, while GPs are delivering the AstraZeneca vaccine.