Anyone over the age of 30 years can now receive a winter booster dose (4th booster) of a Covid-19 Vaccine.
You may have seen details on this publicised last week, but here are the facts:
- Adults aged 50 to 64 years are now recommended to receive a winter booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
- Adults aged 30 to 49 years can elect to receive a winter booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, however the benefit for people in this age group is less certain.
- The interval recommended between the first booster dose (or recent COVID-19 infection) and a winter booster dose is now 3 months (previously 4 months).
We need to emphasise that people previously eligible for a winter booster dose remain at higher risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19 and should receive a winter booster dose as soon as possible. They include:
- all adults aged 65 years or older
- residents of aged care or disability care facilities
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 50 years or older
- people who are severely immunocompromised (this will be their 5th dose)
- people aged 16 years or older with a medical condition that increases the risk of severe COVID-19 illness, and
- people aged 16 years or older with disability, significant or complex health needs, or multiple comorbidities which increase the risk of a poor outcome.
If you have previously been infected with Covid-19, irrespective of which variant it may have been, you should still continue to receive recommended vaccine doses, after an interval of 3 months, as prior infection alone will not provide sufficient protection against severe disease.
As always, our clinic is a walk-in clinic. We want to make it as easy and convenient for our patients to receive their booster shot as we can. You can just walk-in, we will take care of everything for you. The usual wait time is no more than 5 minutes.
We are approved to administer all forms/brands of Covid-19 Vaccines.
We post our clinic operating hours on Facebook and our website at the start of each week. Click here is you would like to see this weeks operating hours.
We would also like to take the opportunity to remind you that FREE FLU VACCINES have been extended until the end of July. If you would like to receive a FLU vaccine you can walk-in during any of our clinics operating hours. They can also be administered at the same time as your Covid-19 booster. We can administer the FLU vaccine to people aged 5 years and older.
Please remember to bring your photo Id and Medicare card.
Finally, this is the last month of the Free RAT test program. Each holder of a valid pension, concession or veterans’ health care card has been entitled to 5 tests per month (20 free tests in total) since February. This program ends at the end of July. If you have not had the free 20 tests it is worth getting them while you can. Once the program ends the funding will cease.
As always, we are here to help. If you have any questions please feel free to chat to any of our pharmacists on 08 9593 6166, or just respond to this email.