SYDNEY – Australia today pressed over-50s to get their coronavirus shots, as fears mounted that vaccine hesitancy could be priming the country for disaster.
Australia is one of the few countries in the world to eliminate community transmission of Covid-19, but vaccine roll-out has been slow.
After chronic delivery delays, there is growing evidence that older Australians are more concerned about the AstraZeneca vaccine’s side effects than catching the virus.
“I encourage those over 50 to get the jab,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said today, “and if you are over 70, I would very much encourage you to.”
“My mother has had it, my mother-in-law has had it, and they are doing great,” Morrison added, trying to ease concerns about widely publicised risks of blood clotting.
The World Health Organisation recommends continued use of the AstraZeneca shot, arguing that the benefits far outweigh the associated rare risk of clots.
But according to a recent poll by Essential Report, only 42% of Australians say they would get vaccinated as soon as possible, and almost a third would get the Pfizer shot but not AstraZeneca.
The poll showed a notable jump in vaccine hesitancy among over-55s since early April, when the government said under-50s would get the Pfizer rather than AstraZeneca jabs.
A separate Resolve Strategic poll for the Sydney Morning Herald showed similar results.
An estimated 25% of the 4.6 million vaccine doses distributed across Australia so far have not been used.
Peter Doherty, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1996, weighed in today, tweeting: “I’ll be getting my second shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine.”
Blood clots are “certainly a risk we could do without”, he said.
“But one fatality with more than a million doses beats the 5-10,000 deaths (+ much, much more chronic illness) per million we might expect if the virus cut loose here.” –
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