Covid Qld: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk refuses to say if Queensland will mandate the Covid jab for teachers

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to say whether Queensland will mandate the Covid jab for teachers once the virus is circulating in the community, adding when she expects the state to reach the 80 per cent vaccinated target. HAVE YOUR SAY

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to say whether Queensland will mandate the Covid jab for teachers once the virus is circulating in the community next year.

Ms Palaszczuk said the government was standing firm on the December 17 reopening date, and that people had just six days now to get their first dose to be protected in time.

“We’ve got six days to get everyone to the rate where it’s going to be safe to open up,” she said Monday afternoon arriving at a caucus meeting.

“It’s not going to be safe if everyone doesn’t go and get their vaccine.”

She said the government was wedded to the reopening date whether the population got to the 80 per cent double dose target or not.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the government is standing firm on the December 17 reopening date. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jono Searle

But she said she expected Queensland would reach it by then.

Asked whether she would mandate the jab for teachers, like Victoria and NSW has done, to protect children who are too young to be vaccinated once the virus was circulating in the 2022 school year, she did not answer.

Instead, she said: “Just on the children’s issue, I saw reports this morning that the US is looking at potentially vaccinating children from November so they’re going through their final assessment processes.”

“So let’s keep a really close eye on what’s happening there.”

Meanwhile, Ms Palaszczuk said her ministers who had travelled to indigenous communities last week had reported back ideas on how to improve vaccination rates there.

She said she would be speaking about what those ideas were during the week.

It’s understood MPs have reported back about terrible misinformation campaigns in the regions that include letterbox drops.

Low vaccination rates in young people had been driven by apathy, they said, but women in their 20s and early 30s had been particularly scared by falsehoods that the vaccine could impact their fertility.

It’s understood MPs have discussed educating women more on the devastating health consequences of falling ill with Covid while pregnant.