Health advice
Dear WA Department of Health,
I would like to request the following documentation to be provided to me according to Freedom of information request under the 1982 Freedom of Information Act
Documents relied upon by the Chief Health Officer of Western Australia that determined that certain occupations and industries are at
increased risk of exposure to COVID-19.
Yours faithfully,
Tim Murphy
Dear Mr Murphy
The information you are requesting is publicly available, with access to referenced information available on the Department of Health (DoH) website link:
https://ww2.health.wa.gov.au/Articles/A_...
Please refer to the ‘Related links’ on the right hand side of the website page: specifically ‘Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination Frequently Asked Questions’.
On page 2 of the accessed PDF document, there is a further link to: ‘Chief Health Officer’s advice on COVID-19’.
The published letters are those of advice from the Chief Health Officer to the Premier; and contain a comprehensive outline of the reasoning behind the mandates.
Best regards
Nareen Burnell | Senior FOI Coordinator
Technology and Information Services | Corporate Services | Office of the Director General
Department of Health
2nd floor, B Block, 189 Royal Street, EAST PERTH WA 6004
T: (08) 9222 6411
E: [WA Department of Health request email]
www.health.wa.gov.au
The contents of this e-mail transmission are intended solely for the named recipient(s), may be confidential, and may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure in the public interest. The use, reproduction, disclosure or distribution of the contents of this e-mail transmission by any person other than the named recipient(s) is prohibited. If you are not a named recipient please notify the sender immediately.
Dear DOH, FOI,
Thank you Nareen for your quick response.
The information I'm after is not the chief health officers advice more what he relied upon to come to his conclusions.
For example on one of the page you suggested (Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination Frequently Asked Questions) the chief health officer in the first three lines of the second page says (People who have not been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are most at risk. The vaccines have been demonstrated to be effective in preventing infection in individuals and subsequently reduce community spread to others in the community.)
Here is a link to a Harvard study from 68 countries and 2947 counties in the US that suggests otherwise. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article...
Informed consent is important that's why I'd like to be able to look at the studies and documents that the Chief Health Officer relied upon to make his decisions, I comprehend It's not a simple task and would be very time consuming for you, if the information I seek is unavailable then so be it, thank you for your time.
Yours sincerely,
Tim Murphy
Dear Mr Murphy
The WA Department of Health (DoH) keeps abreast of the developments related to COVID-19 from many sources, including scientific papers. These are publicly available and a record of all those that have been accessed is not kept: it is part of ongoing research. A subscription is generally required to access scientific journals, although public libraries may provide free access.
As the documents would be publicly available through research, the Freedom of Information Act 1992 does not apply in this instance. DoH also advises that we are unable to provide copies of any scientific papers as this would be a breach of copyright laws.
The WA Chief Health Officer, Dr Robertson, references papers in multiple journals as they become available, learns from the experiences in other jurisdictions of Australia and other countries, and consults with his counterparts in other jurisdictions. All of these sources of information/knowledge contribute to the measures implemented in WA.
In addition to relevant sources of information on the WA Health website, https://ww2.health.wa.gov.au/Articles/A_...
there is also information on the AHPPC website, https://www.health.gov.au/committees-and...
Best regards
Nareen Burnell | Senior FOI Coordinator
Technology and Information Services | Corporate Services | Office of the Director General
Department of Health
2nd floor, B Block, 189 Royal Street, EAST PERTH WA 6004
T: (08) 9222 6411
E: [WA Department of Health request email]
www.health.wa.gov.au
The contents of this e-mail transmission are intended solely for the named recipient(s), may be confidential, and may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure in the public interest. The use, reproduction, disclosure or distribution of the contents of this e-mail transmission by any person other than the named recipient(s) is prohibited. If you are not a named recipient please notify the sender immediately.