Sydneysiders are used to swinging by the drive-thru for a burger, some charcoal chook or a slab of tinnies, but now, they can also get a jab behind the wheel. Sydney’s first drive-thru vaccination centre opened for business on the morning of September 17, to service one of the parts of the city hardest hit by the Delta outbreak.
The facility, at Belmore Sports Ground car park, will offer both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines for eligible people, Friday through Sunday, for the next six weeks. It will be capable of delivering 1,000 doses in arms a day, to further boost the vaccination coverage needed to safely lift lockdown restrictions, and once further supplies of Pfizer and Moderna arrive in NSW, it will begin operation seven days a week.
The drive-thru is in the heart of the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA, which has produced some of the highest numbers of daily infections anywhere in Australia since lockdown began 12 weeks ago. It is still not clear if the 12 LGAs of concern in Sydney’s west and southwest will be allowed to reopen with the rest of the state once 70 per cent of eligible adults over the age of 16 have been fully vaccinated, but reports in recent days have revealed that targeted vaccination drives in these hotspot areas have produced some of the state’s highest vaccine uptake. More than 81 per cent of people in Canterbury-Bankstown, 85 per cent of people in Parramatta, and 90 per cent of people in Blacktown have now received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.