Page 318 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 9 February 2021
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$39 million in additional funding to ensure that our public health team can continue to respond and protect Canberrans from the risk of COVID-19.
Through this budget the Health Emergency Control Centre, which was established on 29 January 2020, will receive additional resources to manage the ongoing public health emergency. Our clinical resources will also be supported to ensure that we have continued clinical capability at testing centres and hospitals across the ACT.
The budget also supports the ACT’s efforts to play our part and bring more vulnerable Australians home, with dedicated resources and funding for our hotel quarantine program and the health services required to support up to six government-facilitated flights to June 2021.
We have seen information spread in the media in the last couple of weeks which has only highlighted how vital it is for our public health messaging and communications to be based on science and evidence to ensure that the public receive factual and accessible information. That is why we are also investing $1.9 million to support the Public Information Coordination Centre to continue advising the community on critical public health information.
MS ORR: Can the minister update members on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout preparation and planning in the ACT?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I am sure we are all interested in progress in relation to the vaccination program. It is indeed fast moving and on a very significant scale across the country and the ACT. Our priority is to deliver a safe, efficient and targeted vaccination program for all Canberrans. The commonwealth government is, of course, leading the vaccination program under the Australian COVID-19 vaccination policy, in partnership with all states and territories.
The ACT is well advanced in preparation to roll out vaccine delivery in time for anticipated program commencement in late February 2021. The exact commencement date will, of course, be subject to vaccine availability and dependent on the commonwealth supply and distribution processes. However, ACT government preparation is, and has been for some time, well underway.
The government is supporting this mammoth task by providing around $19 million, plus $4½ million in capital funding, to ensure that we are well placed to begin rollout of the vaccination program later this month and to run the program through most of this year. The vaccination program will start slowly, with the highest priority population groups that have been identified by the commonwealth government, drawing on advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.
To support the rollout, we will deliver a local communications campaign to ensure that the community and priority populations for each phase of program rollout are well informed. To inform our communications, we have recently asked Canberrans to respond to a YourSay panel survey and let us know what they would like to know about the vaccination program. Thank you to everyone who has responded to that survey, which will help us to communicate in a clear and targeted way.
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