The Country Mayors Association, which is headed up by Cr Ken Keith OAM, the Mayor of the Parkes Shire, has put two suggestions forward to the NSW Government to assist regional and remote NSW get ahead of the Delta variant.
The first is to establish mobile vaccination clinics to go around regional NSW and visit all communities, perhaps manned by the Australian Defence Force personnel. Cr Keith explained this initiative, “Many of these communities have not had access to vaccines, particularly Pfizer. This opportunity would be warmly welcomed by rural communities and increase the vaccination rate to a target of 80 per cent set by the Government”.
The second involves sewage testing. “Testing at the moment is limited to communities considered at risk. If many towns could be regularly tested, we could get early warning of potential hot spots, lock them down and avert a major spreading outcome,” Cr Keith said.
The Country Mayors Association summed up their suggestions saying, “We greatly appreciate the dedication and commitment of the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Premier Gladys Berejiklian and we make these suggestions in a constructive way which may assist them to get ahead of the game. Ahead of Covid!”
