Vaccine black spot fears
THE federal government is refusing to say what the vaccination rates are in some of the Northern Territory’s remote communities, leading to fears of vaccination black spots in vulnerable populations.
In response to a request for figures, the federal health department said it did not publish community- by- community breakdowns to protect individuals’ privacy. The NT government has recently started publishing community-bycommunity breakdowns of both first and second dose rates for the communities it vaccinates. It comes as dozens of people rocked up to a Freedom Protest at the end of the Smith St Mall on Saturday.
THE federal government is refusing to say what the vaccination rates are in some of the Northern Territory’s remote communities, leading to fears of vaccination black spots in vulnerable populations.
As part of the rollout, some regions are reported to the NT government while others are managed by Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, which report their data to the federal government.
The NT government has recently started publishing community- by- community breakdowns of first and second dose vaccination rates.
Last week, The Sunday Territorian highlighted that some remote communities in Central Australia and the Barkly region have doubledose vaccination rates as low as 5 per cent, despite repeated multiple visits from NT Health’s vaccination teams.
During the week, Chief Minister Michael Gunner revealed that even he had not received an update from the federal government on how the rollout by ACCHOs was proceeding.
In response to a request for the figures, the federal health department said it did not publish community-bycommunity breakdowns “to ensure individuals’ privacy is protected”.
This is despite the NT government publishing data on communities with populations as small as 49 individuals.
The most specific data provided by the federal health department was that 325,375 Aboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander people had received at least their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, representing 54.3 per cent of the community aged 12 or older.
It is far lower than vaccination rate of the broader Australian population, according to Medicare data.
Mr Gunner said his office had also “repeatedly requested the data” from the commonwealth.
“We are still flying blind in the remote communities that the commonwealth is responsible for managing,” Mr Gunner said.
“We have released the data on how the vaccination rates are tracking in every region and community – so all Territorians can know everything that we know.
“All the communities listed on coronavirus.nt.gov.au without a vaccination figure are the ones where the commonwealth is in charge of the rollout.”
Mr Gunner said the data needed to be provided so the NT government could make additional efforts in communities with low vaccination numbers.