WA Health has launched a COVID-19 vaccination blitz for the school holidays, offering a free pass to Perth Zoo and face painting at pop-up clinics for children who get vaccinated.
Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said only 58 per cent of children aged between five and 11 years have received their first dose and encouraged parents to get their children vaccinated if they were eligible.
"We are seeing high numbers of kids catch COVID, and they are making up a significant proportion of hospitalisations," Ms Sanderson said.
"The Perth Children's Hospital, on a busy day, are seeing 30 children a day with COVID.
"They won't all be admitted, but that is a significant portion."
Pop-up clinics offering face painting and various entertainment will be set up across Perth, including at Kings Park, Bibra Lake, Whiteman Park, the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, Mundaring Sculpture Park and Perth Zoo, where every child vaccinated will receive a free, three-year pass.
Ms Sanderson said the state government wanted to make the school holiday vaccination program as fun and easy as possible for children.
"The vaccine is safe and it is the most important way that we can lower that transmission in schools and stop our kids from getting sick with COVID," Ms Sanderson said.
"We know that the unvaccinated are making up a third of our hospitalisations.
"To my knowledge, there are no children in ICU and I couldn't give you the exact percentage of children in hospital, but they are making up a significant portion of the hospitalisations."
Addressing root cause of vaccine hesitancy
The state opposition has called for an education campaign on vaccine safety and efficacy to lift vaccination rates among young children.
"The government needs to do more to reassure parents about the safety of the vaccine," WA Liberals leader David Honey said.
"Quite clearly, a lot of parents who are vaccinated themselves are hesitant to get their children vaccinated."
Mr Honey said simple informational campaigns could be more effective than offering incentives.
"I think the government needs to go to the root cause here. They need to spend some effort to really educate parents, and show them the safety of the vaccine for children," he said.
"Let's show people that children can be safely vaccinated."
Three historical deaths and dip in COVID cases
The vaccination blitz was launched as the state recorded a slight dip in new COVID-19 cases with 6,566 new infections reported up to 8pm on Friday.
There are 236 people in hospital, of those eight are in ICU.
WA Health has reported three historical deaths, all men aged in their 50's, dating back to April 2.
Of the 6,566 new cases, 2,563 were detected by a PCR test and the remaining 4,003 were self-reported positive rapid antigen tests.
There are currently 44,819 active cases in WA.
