Victoria Pushing Autumn Pop-Up Blitz as COVID-19 Cases Surge

Victorian Minister for Health Martin Foley addresses the media during a press conference in Melbourne, Australia, on June 25, 2021. (AAP Image/James Ross

The Victorian Labor Government has announced more than 120 pop-ups COVID-19 vaccination hubs across March to increase booster vaccination rates in the lead up to winter as new COVID-19 cases increase.

“Don’t rely on two doses to get you through this winter. If you are due, make March the month you get your third,” the Victorian health minister Martin Foley said.

The pop-up program are targeted at key areas where the third dose uptake is lower than the state’s average of 62 percent and areas where GPs and pharmacy services for vaccinations are low.

Currently, 60 pop-ups for March have already been provided with another 60 remaining and the state government said that more than 600 pop-ups have been set up since the beginning of 2022.

Omicron BA.2 Subvariant Becoming Dominant

The news to boost vaccine uptake comes as COVID-19 cases increase in Victoria, with experts expecting the new Omicron BA.2 subvariant to be behind the new surge.

Foley said that the BA.2 subvariant is “slowly but gradually asserting itself” as the dominant strain in Victoria.

“In the space of a few weeks we’ve seen the Omicron BA.2 variant go from pretty much nowhere to be seen to the initial reports of at least half of cases,” he said.

“It aligns with international evidence, and we would expect that over time the sub-BA. 2 variant will become the dominant variant.”

Danish studies have shown that though the subvariant was more contagious than the BA.1 subvariant, vaccinated individuals are more susceptible to it rather than unvaccinated individuals.

The World Health Organisation has also maintained that there is no human evidence of the subvariant being more virulent than the BA.1 though some mice studies have contradicted such statements.

Australian microbiology professor, Peter Collignon has advised against implementing further restrictions such as mask mandates or density limits despite the public’s increased susceptibility to the new subvariant.

“The most important parameters are deaths and hospitalisations and they have not gone out of control in most countries where this is going,” he said on Sunrise on Mar. 16.

Collignon said that though there are no “good evidence” to demonstrate restrictions making much impact on controlling infections, he advised Australians over the age of 50 to take up booster shots to “make a difference” to disease severity and death.

He said that though the COVID-19 vaccines have been much less effective at stopping mild and asymptomatic disease than he had hoped, the vaccines are a lot more effective at reducing the risk of severe disease and death.

“We’re going to have to live with COVID,” Collignon said.

“Zero Covid flew away a long time ago that actually means we may have to accept that we get mild disease.”

Since Mar. 16, there are 9,426 new COVID-19 cases and 8 new deaths in Victoria, on average 62 percent of eligible adults have received their third dose.