RAPID Antigen Tests (RATS) remain scarce across Ararat Rural City, despite the Federal Government saying the situation is improving.<\/p>\n
The Ararat Advocate contacted pharmacists and supermarkets across Ararat Rural City yesterday, with only Ritchies IGA stocking tests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did get some thins morning but they will be sold out pretty soon,\u201d a Ritchies employee said.<\/p>\n
Ararat Woolworths, Blooms the Chemist, Priceline Pharmacy and Willaura\u2019s Trident Pharmacy all reported there were no tests available for sale.<\/p>\n
A number of Victorian pharmacists have raised concerns about the government\u2019s free rapid antigen tests scheme, which comes into effect on Monday.<\/p>\n
Community pharmacists have labelled the free rapid antigen test scheme as unacceptable, saying they\u2019re out of stock and the government payments are insufficient and will be delayed by design.<\/p>\n
Six million concession card holders will be able to ask for free rapid antigen tests (RATs) at pharmacies in most parts of Australia from next Monday.<\/p>\n
According to the scheme, concession card holders can collect up to 10 free RATs from pharmacies over a three-month period. A maximum of five can be collected a month.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we have absolutely no tests in stock at the moment. Thewy have been on order for weeks and weeks but they have not arrived,\u201d one pharmacist told the Ararat Advocate.<\/p>\n
Some retailers claim the Australian government is seizing COVID-19 RATs they’ve ordered.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RAPID Antigen Tests (RATS) remain scarce across Ararat Rural City, despite the Federal Government saying the situation is improving. The Ararat Advocate contacted pharmacists and supermarkets across Ararat Rural City yesterday, with only Ritchies IGA stocking tests. \u201cWe did get some thins morning but they will be sold out pretty soon,\u201d a Ritchies employee said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/rats.jpg?fit=1920%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-aa","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}