Get COVID ready this holiday season

With Premier Palaszczuk having announced last week that the fourth Omicron wave has hit the State, PeakCare urges all service providers of child, youth and family services to get ready and be prepared.

• Where possible, re-introduce ‘work from home’ practices
• Familiarise yourselves with the recently introduced ‘COVID-19 traffic light system’  and monitor it closely – it is now ‘amber’
• Encourage the use of masks in crowded indoor settings where social distancing is not possible
• Make sure of your supply of masks, PPE equipment and Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) in case it is needed
• Continue to regularly check updates that may be posted on the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs website
• Anticipate staff shortages and, if you are a non-family-based residential care service provider, re-new your knowledge about the:
  • COVID-19 Prevention and management in residential non-family based services guidelines
  • COVID-19 ORG: Resources for residential non-family based care services, and
  • your organisation’s Business Continuity Planning.

VACCINATE!

The major precaution that must be taken, of course, is to facilitate a significant increase in Queensland’s vaccination rate. Disturbingly, Queensland is lagging behind other States on third jab coverage – at 62.5% – while less than 50% of eligible people are covered with a fourth dose. Are your staff fully vaccinated?

Even more disturbingly, as previously reported on by PeakCare, Queensland’s children’s rate of vaccination is much, much lower than the general population. Nothing much has changed since then. Please do all that you can to make sure that more children and young people in your care are vaccinated!