Samantha Maiden: The virus heads where people are not vaccinated and that’s schools

The state is a sitting duck and time is running out to avoid learning a devastating lesson the hard way like we did, writes new Advertiser columnist Samantha Maiden.

The prospect of your entire family catching Covid from an outbreak at your son’s high school tends to focus the mind.

It certainly focused my mind in August, when one of Canberra’s biggest Covid clusters unfolded at my son’s school.

Until then, we had really lived as if Covid didn’t exist for most of the pandemic.

Just like South Australia we had experienced some short lockdowns but nothing catastrophic.

But on a Thursday night in August the entire city went into lockdown.

Two months later we are still in lockdown.

During that first week, on a Sunday night, we got an email from the school confirming a child at my son’s school had caught Covid.

“Oh,’’ I thought as I read through the next email explaining which students would be tested first. Year 8.

My phone was soon running hot with mothers who had confirmed the infection was in my oldest son’s year.

SA’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier, Premier Steven Marshall, health minister Stephen Wade and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens pose for pictures after getting their second vaccinations in March. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Eventually, the cluster would grow to more than 50 people from that single infection, mostly household spread: siblings, parents and grandparents.

It was a chilling example of the speed with which the Delta variant spreads within families.

Most of the people who got sick and ended up in hospital were under 40. That was an eye opener.

Why?

They weren’t vaccinated.

We had to quarantine for a fortnight.

It wasn’t so bad. We have a backyard and a trampoline.

But for the families who caught Covid from the outbreak at the school it was frightening.

Labor MP Katy Gallagher posted this picture to social media after her child was diagnosed with Covid-19. Picture: Kat Gallagher/Instagram

One of the parents was Labor MP Katy Gallagher, who was plunged into a world of speaking to her teenager daughter Evie wearing full PPE.

Don’t underestimate the terror those families felt.

While it’s true that the scientific literature is reassuring that most children don’t get sick enough to end up in hospital, there is still a lot we don’t know about the impact of the virus.

What we do know is this: Covid-19 is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

And in Australia right now, that’s our teenagers and kids and in some states worryingly, it’s adults who had months to get vaccinated.

All of the international evidence supports the fact that when even vaccinated countries reopen the virus heads where people are not vaccinated and that’s schools.

Even in Israel, one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, infections are surging among schoolchildren.

“The combination of (unvaccinated) children meeting in school followed up by large family gatherings is the recipe for mass dissemination of the disease,” Ran Balicer, the chair of the expert committee that advises the Israeli government on pandemic response, recently told Science.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, given the recent lockdown and the outbreak of Covid in Canberra, that we are enthusiastic vaccinators.

More than 88.6 per cent of adults in Canberra have had one dose of the vaccine as of September 28. In many age groups the take up is a stunning 95 per cent.

Compare that with SA, where only 66.7 per cent of adults have had the first dose of the vaccine. That’s a vaccination rate that makes SA a sitting duck.

If recent months have taught Australia anything, it is that the Delta variant will arrive in SA eventually, and vaccination is the only real defence.

The borders will reopen.

Cases will climb and people will die.

But hopefully, those numbers will be kept in check by the vaccine.

Eventually, Delta will arrive on the doorstep of every community in Australia that has escaped to date and what you do now to prepare for that moment matters.

In many parts of Australia, months of lockdown have had one main purpose: Buying enough time to get more of the community vaccinated.

That’s why when the Prime Minister announced you could book teenagers in to get vaccinated in September, I booked my two teenage sons in at midnight on the first day you could do it.

When I worked out you could get earlier appointments, I cancelled and booked my two teenage sons in earlier for the Moderna vaccine at the chemist.

It was quick and easy to book.

Not that I want to get into the vaccine wars, but Moderna is another mRNA vaccine that’s not just as effective as Pfizer, it’s actually better at breakthrough infections.

The feeling of relief they are now vaccinated was huge.

Hopefully, they will be fully vaccinated before school returns in Canberra in November.

But for South Australians who fail to take up the opportunity to be vaccinated now, the results could be devastating.

In Canberra, the number of teenagers aged 12 to 15 who are now vaccinated is a stunning 42 per cent.

That’s despite the fact vaccine bookings opened just weeks ago.

In SA, it’s just 13 per cent of teenagers. That’s one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation.

Only WA and Tasmania is lower. Yes, it’s a larger population, but take the opportunity to get your kids vaccinated while you can.

After spending weeks in lockdown, the idea of having access to free, safe vaccines and failing to take up the offer seems like a kind of madness.

Learn from the states that learned the hard way – book your vaccination for yourself and for your kids before it’s too late.

Samantha Maiden is the national political editor for news.com.au