COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (14:44): For the sake of clarity, has the government discussed establishing a vaccination centre at the Wayville Showground or another location?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:44): I am not going to speculate about where clinics might be. We are going to do exactly what we did with the testing program, which is develop a very practical, dynamic network of clinics for testing. In fact, I think my reference to testing clinics might be a good opportunity to remind the house that, as SA Health is stepping up and providing leadership within South Australia for the national vaccination program, the largest peacetime operation this state has had to deal with, that does not mean it has put down the tools on a whole range of other parts of this program.

We are still conducting testing clinics, we are still monitoring compliance with QR codes, we are still meeting people at the border to make sure that they are complying with their public health responsibilities and, by the way, we are continuing to provide quality health services to South Australians through almost 45,000 employees across the state.

In terms of continuing to invest in top quality services, those of us who pass the Victoria Park racecourse would notice that we are continuing to invest. We have invested in a large—I presume you call it a tent—single arch shelter, which will provide four lanes of traffic through that clinic. One of the key benefits of that investment is to reduce the risk of that facility needing to shut because of inclement weather. As I said, there's a lot of work to be done to roll out the vaccination program, but that is in the context of a large ongoing effort by SA Health in a whole range of domains.