Lucy Carne: Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy must be urgently addressed

The fears of the vaccine hesitant shouldn’t be dismissed as irrational, but they must be addressed — urgently, writes Lucy Carne.

You can always pick the anti-vaxxers’ emails.

They’re overwritten, nonsensical diatribes in at least three different fonts and text colours. There’s some shouty caps, quotes from obscure conspiracy sources and a possible threat to you or your children’s safety.

They’re also very easy to ignore and delete.

Not so the vaccine hesitant.

As a number of my fellow “Geriatric Millennials” (as the UK press patronisingly dubbed those born between 1980 and 1985) have discovered, it’s our parents who we now must convince to get vaccinated.

Jane Malysiak, 84, reacts as she becomes the first person in Australia to receive a Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Picture: Steven Saphore / AFP

Who would have thought it would come to this?

The generation who became adults amid Bali, New York and London terror attacks, built careers during a global financial crisis while burdened with HECS debt, tried to enter the property ladder amid a housing boom and are raising kids in a pandemic now have to parent our parents into getting vaccinated.

But calmly explaining to them that historic clotting is not connected to the extremely rare AstraZeneca clots doesn’t work.

Nor is explaining to them that their risk of dying from a vaccine clot is roughly one in 800,000, whereas being hit by lightning in their lifetime is one in 15,300.

The global infection fatality rate of COVID-19 (with 1.5-2 billion infections as of February) is about 0.15 per cent.

However, WHO’s data division assistant director Dr Samira Asma told media last week that the 3.4 million recorded COVID deaths is actually closer to six to eight million people dead since the pandemic started.

But try getting that through the noise of unsubstantiated vaccine fears peddled on Facebook by old ducks in gold sandals sipping chai lattes.

It’s not enough that they enjoyed the blessings of free university, affordable property prices, guaranteed pensions and will bow out of taking responsibility for the ramifications of climate change.

Now they want our Pfizer vaccines. Or no vaccine as they “just wait to see what happens”.

I’m being facetious. Everyone deserves a safe vaccine of their choice.

The vaccine hesitant are not to blame for wavering on rolling up their sleeves. They want reassurance and reliable information. Instead, they’re met with conflicted messaging.

Look at the hypocrisy of the Queensland Premier and chief health officer who have not yet had their own vaccinations, despite urging the public to do as they say (not as they do).

Annastacia Palaszczuk is the only Australian Premier over 50 years old who has not had her jab.

Queensland’s chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk are yet to have their first vaccine, despite being within the age group. Picture: Peter Wallis

Then there was Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt’s confusing statement: “We want to encourage everybody over 50 to be vaccinated as early as possible,” he told media last Thursday.

“But we’ve been very clear that, as supply increases later on in the year, there will be enough … mRNA vaccines for every Australian.”

Vaccine hesitancy is not an insignificant social movement.

A staggering 41 per cent of people surveyed by Queensland’s Health Department say they are reluctant to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Most cite health risks such as blood clots, anaphylaxis and headaches as the main reason for avoiding the jab, according to The Australian.

Then there are the reports out of Victoria’s mass vaccination hubs of nurses only administering one jab in eight hours.

Australia must reach herd immunity through vaccinating 95 per cent of the population.

This will never happen if we do not take the public health threat from vaccine hesitancy seriously.

This gentle, kid-glove treatment, hoping that they’ll come round in the end doesn’t work. And we don’t have the time to waste.

Perhaps, as Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid has flagged, those over 70 who decline the AstraZeneca vaccine will need to go to the end of the line for the Pfizer jab.

It’s no mystery why 21.2 million people in the UK are fully vaccinated with 58.5 million doses given out, while Australia has done a measly 3.37 million jabs.

We are deluded by the luck (so far) of dodging mass deaths. But when COVID does come, the vaccine hesitant will be ‘sitting ducks’.

Dealing with a pandemic is filled with uncertainty and the fears fuelling vaccine hesitancy should not be dismissed as irrational.

But vaccine hesitancy must be addressed with a national communication campaign. Urgently. Or we risk losing them to anti-vaxxers forever.

And no amount of emailing from their worried children will get them back.