Victoria has made a huge change to its vaccine mandates policy, with the state revealing on Thursday it would extend a deadline.
In the chief health officer’s daily update the government announced the third dose booster deadline would be extended by four weeks for workers in key sectors, including healthcare, aged care, disability, emergency services, corrections and quarantine accommodation and food distribution centers.
The original deadline was February 12 and workers in those sectors must provide evidence of their third dose by March 12, otherwise they can’t work.
The update did not explain why the change was made.
Victoria recorded 9391 new cases and 16 Covid deaths in the past 24 hours.
There are now 543 infected people in Victorian hospitals, with 75 in intensive care and 23 on ventilators.
Victoria’s pre-Omicron peak for Covid hospitalisations was 851 in October when the state was battling a surge in Delta infections.
However, the figure is dwarfed by the 1795 people in NSW who are in hospital with Covid.
More than 93 per cent of eligible Victorians are fully vaccinated and the state has 55,946 active cases.
A total of 23,866 PCR tests were taken on Wednesday and 14,863 vaccines were administered at state hubs.
It comes after the state government has ramped up testing within schools and early education facilities and this week announcxjmtzywed rapid antigen tests would be free for the families of young children.
Mr Andrews said it would give parents peace of mind.
“It is wildly infectious, young people can have it and not present with any symptoms, (but) if you can find those cases, then you can do something about it and cut off those chains of transmission,” he said.
