South Australian parents have been urged to get their children vaccinated against influenza on the same day as a COVID-19 vaccination blitz has begun in the state's schools.
But the state's Health Minister says no decision has yet been made on making flu vaccines free for everyone.
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said there had been 1,195 cases of the flu this year in South Australia, compared with 12 at the same time in 2021.
In 2019, there were about 13,000 cases by May.
So far this year 126 people have been hospitalised with the flu.
About 45 per cent of this year's flu cases were in people 18 or under, Professor Spurrier said.
With only 10.6 per cent of children aged under five vaccinated — despite the jab being free for that age group, Professor Spurrier urged parents to get their progeny inoculated.
"At the moment in our flu season, it is the young ones — the children — that are getting flu and passing it around, so parents if you've had a lot of sickness in your family with your kids, that's a reason — there's a lot of flu being passed around by our young people," she said.
Queensland announced on Monday that the flu vaccine would be free for people aged six and over.
South Australian Health Minister Chris Picton said no decision had been made locally.
"This is certainly something we've been looking at over the past couple of days since Queensland made its announcement," he said.
School vaccination hub program starts
A COVID-19 vaccination hub program at 40 South Australian schools begins today.
Each Friday for the next four weeks, 10 primary schools will have a vaccination clinic on-site for students and parents.
The schools will then become a community clinic on the Saturday.
Vaccine clinics will also be offered at sites across the state for the Community Vaccination Day tomorrow.
SA Health said as of yesterday, 59.6 per cent of 5 to 11-year-olds had received their first vaccination and 42.7 per cent of the same age group had received their second vaccination.
Professor Spurrier said children aged 5 to 15 who were unvaccinated against COVID-19 were 30 per cent more likely to be hospitalised than those who had received their vaccines.
"As a community, it is so important for children to get those COVID-19 vaccines," she said.
SA Health reported 3,169 new COVID-19 cases today, along with the death of a woman in her 80s.
A total of 226 are in hospital, including 10 in intensive care.
Just under 4,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the state yesterday and on Wednesday, bringing the total in South Australia since the start of the pandemic to more than 500,000.
Security to keep schools safe
Yesterday, a small group of protesters gathered outside one of the schools where the vaccination hubs were due to begin today — Grange Primary School, in Adelaide's west.
Department for Education chief executive Martin Westwell said security guards had been arranged for outside all of the school clinics, even before the protest.
"We want to protect our students, we want to protect our teachers and we want to make sure that the learning can carry on in a meaningful way and so we're absolutely committed to making sure we can vaccinate our school communities," he said.
Professor Spurrier said it was not an "appropriate place" for a protest.
"Students can get frightened, they don't understand what it's all about and with the events that have happened in the US in schools recently, I just think it's important that all school students feel they're in a safe environment, so I don't support that sort of activity at a school," she said.
Two public primary schools — Highbury and Heathfield — are on "circuit-breaker" online learning days, while four Adelaide high schools are doing a mix of online and face-to-face learning.
Students in years 7 to 12 no longer required to wear masks from Monday, although they are still strongly recommended.
