Mt Victoria resident Dr Barry Werth wants to Blue Mountains residents to mask up and show they are vaccinated.
A semi-retired pharmacist with a PhD in epidemiology, Dr Werth has designed a face mask and a car sticker for vaccinated people to use.
"At the beginning of August, vaccination rates in Sydney's outer west and Blue Mountains were much lower than in many other parts of Sydney which indicated that many people in our community were either hesitant or resistant to getting vaccinated. I thought that I should do something about this situation," he said.
"Both items can be used to show that you are doing the right thing for your community by being vaccinated against COVID-19. They also act to encourage others in the community to do the right thing and get vaccinated," he said.
"With the recent outbreak of the Delta variant in Greater Sydney, vaccinations are now increasing. Government data shows that at August 27, 70 per cent of the Blue Mountains LGA has had a first vaccine dose and 42 per cent are fully vaccinated. This is a higher vaccination rate than some Sydney LGAs but lower than others."
Dr Werth said he was still concerned about the level of misinformation about vaccines.
"Sadly, some people cannot differentiate between fact and fiction. The fact is that over 218 million people world-wide have contracted COVID-19 and over 4.5 million people have died from it. Survivors suffer long-term effects that are still not well understood," he said.
"This is a virus that poses a serious risk to the community and should not be underestimated. As is the case with other serious communicable diseases, vaccines are the only solution to the problem. We have been told repeatedly that we should do two things: obey the health orders and get vaccinated. I hope that the use of these face masks and car stickers in the community will help achieve the vaccination objective."
The face mask and car sticker are being sold online with part proceeds being donated to the COVID Vaccination Alliance of UNICEF Australia.
Powering the largest and fastest vaccination operation for humanity, the COVID Vaccination Alliance of UNICEF Australia supports global vaccine roll-out and emergency pandemic outbreaks by mobilising funding and advocacy resources in Australia. Many lower income countries are badly affected. People in many high income countries are offered free vaccination by their governments. Some developed countries already have at least 50 per cent of their people fully vaccinated, whereas the vaccine uptake in two thirds of the world (eg Asia, Pacific, Africa) of more than 5 billion people is well under five per cent.
The face masks and car stickers are available from: www.ihavebeenvaccinated.com.au.
