THE number of people who showed up for the first mass vaccination clinic at Maitland Showground on Thursday has highlighted the "unmet need" for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the region.
Dr Craig Richards, of The Lorn Surgery, said they vaccinated about 300 people at the clinic, including walk-ins.
"We had 60 booked for the first hour, but we did 100 vaccines in that time," he said. "Clearly there is some unmet demand there - a lot of those people spoke about how they had really struggled to get a vaccine any earlier."
Dr Richards said there was also quite a lot of interest from younger people who were not yet eligible for Pfizer.
"If we have enough people on our wait list we will probably run another clinic within two weeks, and we are hoping that within a month we'll have some Pfizer, which will certainly result in much more regular, larger clinics," he said. "If we can get a large quantity we will run a clinic every week - and if we get as much as we'd like, we'll run it every day. There is a demand and a need for a local mass vaccination clinic."
Book via lornsurgery.com.au or 4933 2622.
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