Jerrinja Aboriginal Community in lockdown after positive COVID case

Jerrinja Aboriginal Land Council CEO Alfred Wellington confirmed the positive case on Thursday (October 7) saying a pop-up testing clinic has been established within the village, while further test sites were also opened at the nearby Crookhaven Park.

"As a precaution the community has been locked down and are being encouraged to get tested," Mr Wellington said.

"We walked around the community this morning [Thursday], along with our local police liaison officer and a Jerrinja community worker who works for Waminda, advising people what was happening and urging them to get tested."

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At any one time around 120 people live in the village at Orient Point overlooking the Crookhaven River.

"We are trying to manage the situation," Mr Wellington said. "We've had health agencies involved working with local community health workers.

"We held an emergency response meeting with Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District on Thursday morning.

"The emergency testing clinic started at 9am and we should have results by early Friday morning.

"The response has been good and the community has come forward, responding to the concerns and got tested."

The news come as the Shoalhaven registered another nine COVID cases, three of which were linked and the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District (ISLHD) 60 positive COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm Wednesday night.

NSW recorded eight deaths and 587 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours.

Mr Wellington said vaccination rates in the village were hard to estimate as community members have been accessing vaccinations at a number of local locations including through Waminda, the Aboriginal Medical Service, as well as a clinic at Jerrinja and another in Nowra.

He estimates at least half the community are double vaccinated.

There have been real concerns around vaccination rates in the local indigenous community.

In late August the Royal Flying Doctor Service visited the Jervis Bay Territory and administered 385 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to help protect the Aboriginal community against the virus.

The program was combined effort by the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council (WBACC) and the Jervis Bay Territory (JBT) to lead the charge in raising vaccine awareness in the community.

JBT remains under a Public Health Emergency which restricts some movements in and around the territory.

"Hopefully the seriousness of this virus has now hit home," Mr Wellington said.

"Any complacency about the seriousness of this, this is a wake up call for all those people who were sceptical about the virus."

He said he and the community are concerned about the lifting of travel restrictions on October 11.

"I have fears, real fears of what that might mean for our community," he said.

"Regional NSW opening up is a real concern. I'm very concerned about community members who haven't been vaccinated and how vulnerable they'll be to the onslaught, if I can call it that, of visitors to the area once we open up again.

"It puts our community at risk. Even those vaccinated have to be very careful and take precautions.

"It's a concern for our elders."

Mr Wellington said watching the scenes of the virus spreading through communities in west and far western NSW was a "real concern".

"It made me more angry than anything else," he said.

"Those community health organisations out there alerted the NSW Government, saying they were extremely worried about what was happening in Sydney and the possible spread to communities and look what happened."