Matthew Abraham: Millions of people globally are desperate to get vaccinated against COVID-19 but in SA it’s all a bit of a yawn

What does it say about SA that many of us say “nah” or “maybe” to the potentially lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine, Matthew Abraham asks.

Yeah, nah, maybe we’ll get the jab that could save our lives. While millions of people around the world are scrambling to get their first doses of the fabulous vaccines that safely protect against the killer COVID-19, here in South Australia it’s all a bit of a yawn.

Free, lifesaving vaccine, anyone? Thanks for the offer, but we’ll think about it. What on earth does this say about us?

An exclusive opinion poll in last Saturday’s Advertiser revealed only half of all South Australians say they will “definitely” get vaccinated against COVID-19, with almost one in three saying they either won’t get the jab, or “maybe” they will.

The YouGov poll found a sizeable 13 per cent said they would not get vaccinated, for various reasons.

This doesn’t make us an anti-vaxxer enclave, because the poll showed just 3 per cent of respondents agreed “it’s against my principles/beliefs to get vaccinated”. These are the people who believe in a mythical beast called “herd immunity” and get a free ride on the rest of us.

Anti-vaxxers, please direct your angry letters to the North Pole because while there’s a chance Santa Claus might read them, I sure won’t.

The three biggest vaccine hesitation factors are concerns about side effects, what’s seen as inadequate testing of vaccines and the impact on long-term health. Admittedly, these worries have been bouncing around inside my head so it’s good to know I’m not alone.

Women’s & Children’s Emergency Department nurse Emily Hooper gets her Pfizer vaccination from Nurse Unit Manager Maryanne Attard on March 2, 2021. Photo: Mike Burton

It wasn’t helped during the week when the nation’s Health Minister, Greg Hunt, was admitted to hospital suffering from the bacterial infection cellulitis in his leg two days after getting the injection. Despite assurances from PM Scott Morrison that it’s not connected with the AstraZeneca vaccine, it’s still lousy timing.

We really need to trust the impartial advice of some of the best medical brains in Australia, including immunologists with world-class credentials, who assure us the vaccines are safe and effective.

SA has a particular problem and it’s a nice problem to have.

Throughout more than a year of this global pandemic, we have been almost completely free of COVID-19, apart from cases we’ve flown into the state for hotel quarantine. Only four people have died, our hospital ICUs have barely been used for cases and, despite the Great Woodville Pizza Bar Scare, we’ve not had a single sign of community transmission.

Call it complacency if you wish but we’re not mugs. We know this makes SA one of the safest places in the world. While this wasn’t a question in the opinion poll, it probably explains many of the answers.

It’s completely unsurprising the use of QR codes by shoppers has fallen off dramatically. Police Commissioner Grant Stevens warned during the week that use of the system was “insufficient” and hinted that if QR scanning numbers didn’t pick up he might have to consider rolling back the relaxation of unpopular bans.

Good luck with that one. Without a clear and compelling threat, he’ll run into a wall of community and business resentment.

A recent University of Adelaide study on the economic impact of last November’s three-day lockdown shows the “short, sharp lockdown” saw a drop of 20,000 jobs a day, with 80 per cent of permanent workers and more than half of casual workers stood down.

The report, commissioned by the Australian Hotels Association, found somewhere between $7m and $10m of food and booze was thrown out, a shameful waste.

Ongoing restrictions to the end of December resulted in lost turnover of $100m and 12,500 fewer jobs.

All this apparent boredom with a killer pandemic has bobbed up in another YouGov opinion poll, published in this paper last Sunday. It showed the COVID shine is starting to tarnish for Premier Steven Marshall, with his government’s comfy coronavirus buffer now reduced to 51 per cent to Labor’s 49 per cent. Labor can win an election on those numbers.

If the community’s dragging its heels on vaccination enthusiasm, the Marshall Government’s hardly setting a cracking pace with its vaccine rollout. Early vaccination numbers are running at just over 100 a day, roughly neck and neck with the daily count of SA Health media releases and staged vaccine photo opportunities. The longer they take, the more room they leave for public doubt.

So bring on the jab, the sooner the better. We’ve been told for weeks now the government is about to start “ramping up” what it calls Operation COVID Shield but they need to shake a leg if they want us all to roll up our sleeves.