SYDNEY — Since the day the coronavirus arrived in Australia 18 months ago, the people of Walgett watched and prayed it would never find its way to their tiny Outback town, where many residents are Indigenous and especially vulnerable.
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When an outbreak in Sydney 400 miles to the southeast began to seep into the surrounding region last month, some locals feared the worst was finally on its way.
“Everybody said it’s not a case of if we are going to get it, it’s a question of when,” said Michael Urquhart, general manager of Walgett Shire Council. “We just didn’t think it would be this quick.”
Walgett reported its first case on Wednesday when a local man tested positive after being released from a state prison. On Friday, the town, which is now under lockdown, reported two more.
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The news raised alarms in the remote town of 2,000, where the hospital has no intensive care unit and seriously ill patients are often flown by helicopter to a city three hours away, Urquhart said.
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But it has struck the most fear in the Indigenous community, which makes up nearly half the town and is more susceptible to an outbreak. According to Walgett Shire Mayor Ian Woodcock, the 27-year-old who first tested positive is an Aboriginal person.
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“There is panic,” said Anne Dennis, a Gamilaraay woman who lives in Walgett and leads the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council. “I really am apprehensive. We’ve got elders in the community that we really want to keep safe. They are really scared, really frightened, and getting tested.”
Experts have warned since the early days of the pandemic that the coronavirus could overrun Australia’s Indigenous communities, which suffer from higher rates of chronic health issues and a lower life expectancy than non-Indigenous Australians, particularly in remote areas.
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But the country’s “zero covid” approach, combined with Indigenous community health efforts, kept the virus at bay. Indigenous Australians have been six times less likely than the wider Australian population to contract the virus, government data showed earlier this year. Of the 149 cases involving Indigenous people as of April, few were serious enough to require hospitalization. Not a single Aboriginal elder died. There were no cases in remote communities.
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Until now.
Woodcock said the man was tested while in Bathurst Prison, about 120 miles from Sydney, but released before the result came back.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. By the time officials caught up with the man on Wednesday, he was back in Walgett inside a house with his mother. Woodcock said he didn’t know if she had been exposed but the two additional cases are members of the same family.
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Cases have also mushroomed in Dubbo, a city of about 40,000 people three hours away, where the Walgett man spent time while infectious. Infections in Dubbo jumped from five on Thursday to 22 on Friday.
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A spokesperson for the local health district told The Washington Post that “a majority” of the 25 cases in Dubbo and Walgett are Aboriginal people, including many children.
Dennis fears the virus will devastate her community, especially if it turns out to be the more contagious delta variant responsible for Sydney’s so-far unstoppable outbreak.
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“Houses are overcrowded,” she said, citing a shortage of affordable housing. “Where are people going to isolate if they contract covid-19? If one person in the family gets it, everyone will.”
Adding to the alarm is the area’s low vaccination rate. Australia has had one of the slowest rollouts among developed countries, though Sydney's outbreak has quickened the pace. About 24 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
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In the region where Walgett and Dubbo are located, that figure is around 16 percent — the lowest in the state. And for Aboriginal people, it is less than 8 percent, state health minister Brad Hazzard said Thursday.
Hazzard said the federal government was responsible for vaccinating Australia’s Indigenous population. A spokesperson for the federal health ministry said the state shared responsibility. Nationwide, over 14 percent of Indigenous Australians age 16 or older are fully vaccinated, she said.
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Aboriginal leaders in Walgett have asked the government to provide more nurses to provide vaccinations, additional masks and help for people leaving prison so they can quarantine.
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“We call on governments and others who are in a position to support us to do all they can to stop the spread of the virus in Walgett and surrounding communities,” the Dharriwaa Elders Group said in a statement. “The impact on our community could be devastating.”
Some Aboriginal leaders expressed anger that a vulnerable population that was supposed to have been among the first to be inoculated instead is among the last.
“The question I have is, ‘Why?’” Malarndirri McCarthy, a senator for the Northern Territory who is Aboriginal, told Australia’s ABC. She said the vaccination rates for towns with sizable Aboriginal populations like Brewarrina and Walgett were far too low, and that officials had months to prioritize them. “This is incredibly distressing and making people very angry.”
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Frances Peters-Little, a Yuwalaraay elder who lives in nearby Lightning Ridge, told the Guardian it was “criminal” that the rollout had been so badly handled.
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Vaccine supply issues and hesitancy had both played a role, Dennis said. The local Aboriginal Medical Service has been administering doses of Pfizer as they come in, she said, but shifting age restrictions and fears over side effects had left many people wary of taking the readily available alternative, AstraZeneca.
“It’s the remoteness,” said Urquhart, who is 65 and has heart and lung issues but has been waiting for a shot of Pfizer. “If anything goes wrong out here, you’re generally stuck.”
Local officials scrambled to meet soaring demand for tests and vaccines on Thursday. A receptionist at the Aboriginal Medical Service said the center had been “inundated” with requests for both. A line of cars stretched for blocks at a drive-through testing clinic, where around 200 people were tested on Thursday, police said. And local media reported that the closest available vaccination appointment was more than 100 miles and three weeks away.
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Woodcock said the situation was made worse by the state’s decision a few weeks ago to send Pfizer doses from the region to Sydney to inoculate high school students. The state has since reversed course. On Thursday, the federal health ministry announced it was sending 7,680 doses to the area, including Walgett.
On Friday morning, around 50 people were lined up at the local veterans hall, which had been transformed into a pop-up distribution center capable of providing up to 500 daily doses of Pfizer, said Urquhart, who got his first jab.
In a matter of days, Walgett had gone from a remote Outback town known best for its hot spring to a potential covid hotspot that the nation was talking about.
“It feels like we’re holding our breath,” Urquhart said. “Is there going to be another one and then another one, and then it will start like cancer in the community? That’s what we are fearing.”
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