Please click here to download this week’s SEPHU Community Noticeboard
Are you due for your COVID-19 vaccine? There are many vaccination clinic options available for you across Melbourne’s South East which we have compiled in our weekly Community Noticeboard.
Information on booster doses of COVID-19 vaccinations
Staying up-to-date with your COVID-19 vaccinations will give you the maximum protection against COVID-19 and help prevent spread to your family and friends.
If you are 16 years or older and it’s been 3 months since your second primary dose of COVID-19 vaccine, or third primary dose if you are severely immunocompromised, you are due for your booster dose.
For people at greatest risk of severe illness from COVID-19, there is an additional winter COVID-19 vaccine booster dose available. This is an additional booster dose to your first booster dose available to the following people:
- people aged 65 years and older
- residents of aged care or disability care facilities
- people aged 16 years and older who are severely immunocompromised
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 50 years and older.
Those eligible can receive the additional booster dose 4 months after receiving their first booster or from 4 months after a confirmed COVID-19 infection (if infection occurred since the person’s first booster dose).
Information on COVID-19 vaccinations for children aged 5 to 11 years
Children aged 5 to 11 years are eligible for a paediatric dose of COVID-19 vaccine. The recommended schedule for vaccination in this age group is two doses, 8 weeks apart.
Children who are vaccinated receive direct protection against COVID-19.
While children and young people are less likely than adults to get severe symptoms if they contract COVID-19, some can still get very sick – this includes children with certain pre-existing conditions, such as obesity, Down syndrome, or cerebral palsy.
Some children and adolescents can also develop chronic symptoms more than one or two months after COVID infection. This is called Long COVID.
Children can transmit COVID-19, but vaccination will help prevent them transmitting the virus to other children and older age groups, including family members who may be at higher risk, such as grandparents.
Have you tested positive for COVID-19?
There are a number of resources available for you as you rest and recover here: https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/checklist
If you have tested positive for COVID-19, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation recommends you wait 3 months from confirmed infection before receiving your next COVID-19 vaccine dose (including primary and booster doses). Your next scheduled COVID-19 vaccine dose should then be given as soon as possible after this period.
Flu vaccines now available
The flu is back this winter, but so is the annual influenza vaccine.
With borders and Melbourne reopening, the influenza virus is expected to make an unwanted return over coming months which can mean serious illness for those who catch it.
The best defence against the flu is by getting the influenza vaccine to prevent severe illness and from spreading it to your loved ones.
To get your flu vaccine today, please call your local GP or pharmacy.