Wagga workers are calling for high-risk occupations not yet added to the vaccine priority list to get a look in.
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Under the Labour Market Information Portal's COVID risk assessment, both plumbers and hairdressers are categorised as "high risk jobs". The data uses a "physical proximity" and "exposure to disease or infection" score to determine professions' COVID risk levels.
The scale determined that an average plumber has a similar risk level to a police officer, while a hairdresser is closer to an aged care worker, but neither profession is currently included in the vaccine rollout.
Rohan Pearce runs 000 Plumbing where workers have had to visit homes, including those of people in quarantine for emergency call outs, throughout the pandemic.
"I think we should be considered for sure, for the safety of ourselves, our employees and clients," Mr Pearce said. "While, 100 per cent I think the elderly and most vulnerable groups should get first dibs, there's the next tier down and I suppose that's where we fall."
Lily Jenkins is an apprentice hairdresser at The Hollow Hair and Beauty and said she thinks given the exposure risk, her profession should be included in the current rollout phase.
"We can't work from home and you're always dealing with people face to face," she said. "We're definitely at risk because we can't abide by the social distancing rules... we have to touch a client to provide our service."
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the decision had been made on June 4 by the National Cabinet not include 'other essential and high priority workers' for early vaccines because the populations are difficult to define and identify.
Ms Jenkins said just one hairdresser at her salon is eligible for the jab, and Mr Pearce said "99 per cent" of his staff, himself included, do not yet qualify for a vaccine. Both agreed their interactions with the community would make a positive case in a worker or client catastrophic.
"It would be massive if we had a case here," Ms Jenkins said. "We could have up to 10 clients a day, they go home to their families, that's turned into 40 other people."
"We could go to 30 or 40 different places each day and there could be three people in each house," Mr Pearce said. "When you look at it across the week, the risk multiples pretty quickly."
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