Jeremy Rockliff,Minister for Health
The Tasmanian Government is focused on ensuring every eligible Tasmanian has the opportunity to get vaccinated in the lead up to reopening our borders carefully and safely on December 15.
We are all looking forward to reconnecting with family and friends interstate after what has been a tough time for families and businesses.
The best protection we have against COVID-19 is a high vaccination rate – vaccination saves lives and will also help protect our hospital system from additional pressure.
We are well on our way to achieving our target of a 90 per cent vaccination rate, with 87 per cent of over 16-year-olds having had a first dose and 72 per cent fully vaccinated.
If Tasmanians continue to come forward for vaccination, I'm confident we can reach 90 per cent of people aged 16 and older with at least one dose in the next two weeks.
There are plenty of appointments available at clinics, GPs and pharmacies, and we are continuing our bus service which is scheduled to visit Mole Creek, Edith Creek, Irishtown, Sassafras, Redpa and Railton this week.
It's important to note in the recent NSW outbreak, 95 per cent of people with COVID-19 who ended up in hospital weren't fully vaccinated.
Vaccination is the best protection we have, which is why we have mandated it for our health workforce – people go to hospital when they are sick, not to get sick.
The vast majority of health workers have already been vaccinated and in recent days, there has been a significant jump in the public health sector providing evidence of vaccination, with around 93 per cent of our health workforce submitting proof of vaccination.
A significant amount of work has also been undertaken to ensure our hospitals are ready when COVID does arrive in Tasmania. This includes adding 152 new beds in the public health system and hiring an additional 655 FTE since July last year, with further recruitment for new beds underway.
Our escalation plans also provide a surge capacity of up to 211 COVID ward beds across the state and up to 114 ICU surge beds.
