Please encourage your high-risk patients to get vaccinated

14 September 2022

South Western Sydney has two groups who are at high risk of experiencing severe COVID-19 related symptoms and have low vaccination rates – our culturally and linguistically diverse communities and those with chronic conditions.

COVID vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalisations, severe symptoms, and long COVID.

Therefore, there is a significant opportunity to improve health outcomes for our vulnerable populations through improving access to and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines. 1

Please continue to encourage your patients to get vaccinated.

The facts:

COVID-19 and ethnic groups

People born overseas are two times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people born in Australia.² Those with a country of birth in the Middle East have the highest age-standardised death rate at 44.8 deaths per 100,000 people.² This statistic is almost twice the next highest age-standardised death rate (24.9 for North African individuals).²

This statistic is particularly significant to South Western Sydney as 43 per cent of our population was born overseas³, with eight per cent of the population self-reporting as Middle Eastern.⁴

Furthermore, these groups are disadvantaged as they have lower vaccine coverage.

For example, Chaldean, Assyrian, and Arabic groups have lower than 25 per cent three-dose vaccination coverage for those 16 years and above, and in the five-to-11 years categories.⁶ This increases their risk of COVID-related complications.

COVID-19 and chronic conditions

Another high-risk group for COVID-19-related mortality is people with pre-existing chronic conditions.²

Pre-existing chronic conditions increase the risk of COVID-19 complications.¹ Therefore, the risk of death. A person with a pre-existing chronic condition is more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19 (74.9 per cent).²

This risk is significant as 50 per cent of individuals in South Western Sydney live with a chronic disease³, which increases their risk of COVID-related complications.