COVID-19 update – 5 May 2021

5 May 2021

NSW COVID-19 update

NSW Health has been notified of a new COVID-19 case on 5 May 2021. The person resides in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and urgent investigations are underway. The man is in his 50s and has not travelled overseas recently and does not work in a high-risk role. Genome sequencing is underway with results expected in the next 24 hours. Close contacts are being urgently contacted, tested and are being asked to isolate. 

The man has visited a number of venues while potentially infectious which are listed below. Anyone who attended these venues at the listed time must get tested immediately and isolate. This applies to everyone, including those who have been partially or fully vaccinated.

Visit the NSW Health website for regular updates. 

Weekly Update: COVID-19 vaccine roll-out

National Cabinet has brought forward the start date for Phase 2a. From Monday 3 May, general practices who participated in the EOI and who have approval can now start vaccinating those aged 50 years and over with AstraZeneca. This week, GP respiratory clinics have started administering the vaccine to this age group, along with some approved general practices in our region. All practices participating under 1B will be able to administer vaccine to those aged 50 years and over on 17 May.  

As part of the recalibration of the vaccination program, the Commonwealth Department of Health has announcedincreases in the amount of vaccines being supplied to general practice. The allocations to those sites currently receiving 50 and 100 doses per week has been increased to 150 and 200 per week respectively.

The NSW government is also now offering AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines through a number of sites that are being established. There will be two in the central and eastern Sydney region, in Homebush and St George Hospital. Importantly, these sites are also offering vaccines to general practice staff and to those staff who work in aged care facilities and disability group homes. 

Central and Eastern Sydney PHN will be supporting disability group homes to ensure they get access to COVID-19 vaccines. 

Consent form

The Department of Health have consent forms for COVID-19 vaccinations available in English, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Chin Hakka, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Croatian, Dari, Dinka, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hazaragi, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Karen, Khmer, Kirundi, Korean, Kurdish, Laotian, Macedonian, Malayalam, Maltese, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Rohingya, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Tibetan, Tigrinya, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu and Vietnamese.

These consent forms must be completed before receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

Click here to view the consent forms. 

RACGP webinar

The RACGP has shared a recording of the most recent NSW COVID-19 update webinar that ran on Monday 12 April 2021. Click here to watch the webinar.

They will be running a NSW COVID-19 update webinar onMonday 10 May 2021 7.00pm – 8.00pm AEST. Participants will hearupdates from:

• RACGP NSW&ACT’s A/Prof Charlotte Hespe and A/Prof Penny Burns
• NSW Health’s Dr Kerry Chant, Chief Health Officer and Deputy Secretary

Click here to register.

If you have any questions you would like answered in the next COVID-19 update webinar please email nswact.webinars@racgp.org.au. 

COVID-19 near me

If you want to check locations visited by COVID-19 cases near you the following website offers a helpful interactive map: https://covid19nearme.com.au/state/nsw