Covid vaccine booster uptake in western Sydney is lagging behind the rest of the city, with nearly 40% of residents in some areas yet to get a third jab.
Data published by the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care showed that 62.1% of residents in greater western Sydney have received at least three doses of the Covid vaccine, compared with 75.5% for the rest of Sydney.
The data also showed that less than 60% of residents in Cumberland, Liverpool, Fairfield and the Canterbury-Bankstown local government areas had received at least three doses.
These LGAs are among the most diverse in the country and were some of the “LGAs of concern” during the 2021 Delta lockdowns. Residents in these areas faced harsher anti-Covid measures than the rest of Sydney, including restrictions on travel and curfews.
Despite the low number of boosters, residents of western Sydney took up the initial two doses of vaccine in large numbers, with over 95% having received both jabs.
Covid case numbers across Australia continued to surge on Monday, with the latest figures showing 5,429 people in hospital with the virus and 161 in ICU.
The federal health minister, Mark Butler, told reporters last week that hospitalisations and rates of infections would continue to increase, adding that the third booster shot was a key means of reducing the severity of infection.
“Two doses of Covid vaccines just are not enough to provide you with full protection, particularly against these Omicron subvariants,” he said.
“The third-dose rate just isn’t shifting fast enough and I strongly urge people who are eligible for a third dose but have not yet had it to go out and get that booster.”
Executive director of Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, Adam Leto, said it was “concerning” to see uptake of the third and fourth booster shot lag in the region, but that government messaging has a key role.
“One year on from the dramatic increase in Covid case numbers and harsh lockdowns that rocked greater western Sydney, it’s concerning to see this drop in the number of people having the third or fourth vaccine.
“We saw the response from communities, when government in partnership with local leaders, councils and other groups imposed the importance of the vaccines and it worked.
“If the third and fourth booster shots are considered to be a vital part in the nation’s Covid mitigation strategy, then it needs to elevate that message,” he said.
Leto said he didn’t think residents in the western Sydney LGAs hit hardest by the Delta lockdowns would have forgotten the harsh restrictions, which included a heavy police and military presence.
NSW Health said they had worked with culturally and linguistically diverse (Cald) communities to translate vaccine information into over 60 languages, while engaging with local organisations.
“To develop multilingual resources based on community needs and feedback across a variety of channels, NSW Health regularly engages with Cald community and religious leaders, cultural support workers and bilingual community educators, NSW refugee health services, healthcare interpreter services and local health districts,” a spokesperson said.
Professor Julie Leask, a vaccine expert at the University of Sydney, said there were four reasons for the slower uptake, including a lack of awareness of the importance of boosters, suspicion of its necessity, access and a lack of community activation.
“What these figures told me as well, is this very common pattern of inequity in vaccination uptake, which routinely happens early in a program where poorer, more marginalised and more disadvantaged communities are not vaccinating as much,” she said.
“And it’s not anything inherent about those communities, even though we do get some sort of prejudicial stereotypes that people bring in to make sense of this.
“People want to do the right thing. They want to protect themselves, their loved ones and the community, but they need that information. So access through that awareness message is really important.”
Leask said the high uptake of the first two doses demonstrated that, with appropriate government support, communities in western Sydney were willing to get vaccinated.
But there had been a “pendulum swing”, with the government taking away attention and resources from vaccination programs.
“There’s been this big shrinkage of the attention and resourcing of the vaccination rollout. And now we’ve got this wave of Omicron coming, we need to put the assets back into that. The funding and engagement pendulum probably swung too far – further away than it should,” she said.
“And it’s worth continuing to invest in those links with culturally [and] linguistically diverse communities.”
