Community groups have joined forces to encourage residents to get vaccinated in what they describe as an initiative "to protect our community".

"In my personal belief and feelings I don't want to bury one of my old or young friends because of COVID," Wallerawang Community and Sports Club CEO and local resident Steve Jackson said.

Mr Jackson is part of the move to vaccinate around 6000 people with the help of Dr Haran, who has been looking after the medical needs of the Wallerawang community for 30 years.

"About two weeks ago myself and Dr Haran were having a conversation and I said it would be great if we were the first community in the state to become fully vaccinated," he said.

"We'd love Wallerawang, Lidsdale, Portland and Cullen Bullen to be fully vaccinated."

Dr Haran agreed and together they rallied support from Wallerawang/Lidsdale Progress Association, Wallerawang Memorial Men's Shed, Wallerawang/Lidsdale CWA, The Friends of St Johns, Portland Men's Shed, Portland Touch Football Association, Portland and District Swimming Pool and Portland Business Association.

According to Australia's COVID-19 vaccine roadmap 40.4 per cent of people aged 15 and over have had at least one dose of the vaccine and 16.7 per cent of people aged 15 and over are fully vaccinated in the Central West.

For Outer West Sydney and Blue Mountains 39.1 per cent of people aged 15 and over have had at least one dose of the vaccine while 17.9 per cent are fully vaccinated.

According to the Bureau of Statistics 0.014331 per cent of people in the postcode area of 2790 have been vaccinated.

To help boost the numbers and encourage residents to 'get vaxxed' flyers are being dropped into letterboxes which allow people to fill out a form and return them to either Portland or Wallerawang Post Office or Doctor Haran and Associates in Wallerawang.

"The residents are then contacted and have an appointment made to attend Dr Haran's practice for the jab," Mr Jackson said.

Since spreading the word Dr Haran has seen an increase of people coming into his practice for vaccinations.

"I absolutely think it's working, the first time we collected the forms we had around 40 residents come in," he said.

He said initially, vaccinating the over 60s with AstraZeneca was his first priority but now he was targeting everyone.

"We are encouraging everyone [to be vaccinated] including 40 to 59 year-olds for Pfizer and then 18 to 39 year-olds followed by children and everyone can have a choice of something. Moderma will eventually roll out but we have AZ and Pfizer at the moment," Dr Haran said.

He said he understood COVID vaccines were a complex subject but it was "nice to see" the community was coming together.

"It's nice when the community says they want to do something about it. There is a spirit among this community where people embrace things and I am doing my job which is to look after them," he said.

Mr Jackson said the residents of Wallerawang, Lidsdale and Portland were community minded.

"These community groups were more than happy to be part of this initiative, and I've heard lot of people say they weren't going to get vaccinated and because of this they have changed their mind," he said.

"If people choose not to get vaccinated we can't do anything about that, that's their choice but we encourage people to get behind this initiative and get vaccinated for our own good to keep our community safe," he said.

Wentworth Healthcare, the provider of the Nepean Blue Mountains Primary Health Network (NBMPHN) has been working closely with the Department of Health to support the local vaccination roll-out into general practices.

CEO Lizz Reay said general practices were working really hard to vaccinate the community against COVID-19 on top of normal childhood immunisations, flu vaccinations and providing to their normal patient care.

"We now have 88 general practices delivering COVID-19 vaccinations in our region and of these six are located in Lithgow, four of which are offering Pfizer," she said.

"We have seen the community demand for COVID-19 vaccination increase since the recent outbreak and expect that vaccinations numbers will grow more quickly as our capacity and dose allocations increase."

Member for Bathurst Paul Toole has also thrown his support behind the vaccination initiative in Wallerawang, Lidsdale and Portland.

"This is an example of our communities banding together to step up the fight against COVID-19," he said.

"The path to returning back to some sort of normality in our lives is by getting vaccinated. What these community groups are doing could be something that other smaller communities right across the state could consider."

Dr Haran said if people did have concerns about the vaccination, to make an appointment with him to discuss their options.

Information on efficacy and risk can be found on the Department of Health website, within the ATAGI statements.

According to the NSW Department of Primary Health providing access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines to everyone in Australia seeking to be vaccinated, is a key priority of the Australian Government.

It is important for Australians to have access to credible and timely information about COVID-19 vaccines.

The National COVID Vaccine Taskforce has published a range of resources on the Department of Health website at www.health.gov.au. This includes a section which corrects myths and misconceptions - you can visit the 'is it true' page for more information. Vaccination bookings can also be made via the Eligibility Checker.

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