Hotel quarantine staff will need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before returning to work as of next month.
Hotel quarantine staff will need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before returning to work as of next month.
The new rule will apply to security personnel, cleaners and all other hotel staff employed at Western Australia's nine quarantine facilities.
Workers will have three weeks in which to now receive their first and second doses.
They will be offered the Pfizer vaccine, which is the preferred vaccine of those under the age of 50 per guidance from federal health officials.
Premier Mark McGowan today said mandating vaccinations was not his first preference, but that it had become critically important in defending the state against COVID-19.
"Hotel workers are in the highest risk category given their ongoing exposure to international arrivals," he said.
"In the past two weeks alone, we've had 21 confirmed COVID-19 cases detected in returned travellers in our quarantine hotels.
"It's important to ensure hotel quarantine workers are vaccinated to reduce their chance of contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to others and significantly reducing the transmission risk."
Health Minister Roger Cook similarly said that the current rate of vaccination, in which fewer than a third of hotel quarantine staff have been fully vaccinated, was unsatisfactory.
"I urge all hotel quarantine workers to get vaccinated as soon as possible," he said.
"You are our most vulnerable frontline workers and we want to keep you safe, we want to keep your families safe and we want to keep the Western Australian community safe."
Today's news follows discussion of Australia's beleagured vaccine rollout at a national cabinet meeting.
National cabinet will now meet two times a week to resolve major supply and distribution issues.
About 1.5 million Australians have now been vaccinated against the virus, with more than 76,000 of them being Western Australians.
