Hi Coaches, Assistants & Managers,

Qld’s requirements around COVID will be changing soon and this has some important impacts for you.

There are three requirements that are relevant:
1. Qld COVID Safe Future (the Roadmap) that moves to Stage 3 on 17 December or when we reach 80% vaccination status
2. Qld Public and Social Measures linked to vaccination status that will move to a new set of requirements also on 17 December or when we reach 80% vaccination status
3. Qld Vaccination requirements for workers in high risk settings that has been extended to anyone that supplies services in an Educational Setting (i.e. on a school premises)
It’s important to note that Qld is expected to reach 80% vaccination status around 10 December and so 1 and 2 above are likely to come into effect then.

Given that we train at school venues and that many competitions like JPVL/PVL/State Champs have rounds at Stadiums, what this effectively means for you is:

If you are coaching at a venue such as Carrara, BEC, Nissan from 10 December 2021 and are over 16 – you will need to be fully vaccinated.
Easts don’t have any programs operating at the moment that will take place at these sorts of venues, so this is largely here for your information. It may be relevant to you if you are planning on coaching at Pirates Camp in January.
However, when competitions such as PVL and JPVL start up again in 2022 many of the rounds do occur at these venues so you will need to be fully vaccinated by then.

For training
You will need to have had your first dose of a COVID vaccination by 17 December 2021 AND be fully vaccinated by 11:59pm on 23 January 2022. This applies even if you are under 16. This arises due to the operation of 3 above as well as 2 above when you have to coach at venues such as Nissan, Carrara, etc. We have already been contacted by one of the venues that we train at indicating that they will be enforcing this requirement.
It’s a bit complex if you are exempted from getting a vaccination and training occurs at a school. You will need to provide medical evidence of your exemption AND will need to provide a negative PCR result every time you attend training. That’s a big requirement.

Pursuant to these requirements, we are required to collect evidence of your vaccination status (or exemption) and to store that information securely. We will be contacting you all separately to start collecting this information.

Please note that the above is an application of the Qld Government requirements to the specific circumstances of Easts – that we train at Schools and some competitions have rounds at venues that are classed as Stadiums in Qld. There may be different requirements if you are coaching outside of our programs.

We wanted to draw your attention to this now. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me (Pete) so we can try to work through everything.

Thanks!