Why all Australians should get the coronavirus vaccine

My 85-year-old mum just got the jab in the UK, and if she can do it, we can too, writes Matthew Benns.

Meet the fearless face of the coronavirus vaccine — my mum. While anti-vaccine and anti-mask muppets hold protests in Sydney shopping centres she has been only too happy to have the new Pfizer jab in COVID-wracked Britain.

So far Mrs Benns, an indomitable 85 and still living at home alone, reports the only side ­effect has been a slightly sore arm for a few hours.

There has been no sign of the secret government microchip that anti-vaxxers believe will monitor how often she pops down the garden to visit the greenhouse.

Matthew Benns with his mother Nancy.

“Why wouldn’t I go and get the vaccine Matthew?” she said in astonishment when I asked her about it.

“I was thrilled when they called me. I told them my friend Cliff was going as well and they booked us in ­together.”

According to my mum the besieged National Health Service in Britain, in hard lockdown and coping with in excess of 50,000 new cases a day, put on a marvellous show.

“I have never seen so many staff,” she said.

“They took us into a room and a doctor explained exactly what was going to happen and how it would work.”

Matthew Benns with his mother Nancy.

Nancy Benns.

It was then that the unthinkable happened. A nurse, checking to see that they could sit next to each other, asked: “Do you two live together?”

“Good heavens no,” said my shocked mother.

“We just go shopping together.”

Which was good enough for them to be ushered into a room and given the needle at the same time. No ­sooner was it done and they were ­sitting on a chair outside.

“Oh, they gave us a lovely cup of tea,” she said.

“I get the second shot in a couple of weeks and then I should be right as rain.”

Very much in the spirit of 91-year-old Margaret Keenan, the retired shop clerk, who received the UK’s first ever dose of the vaccine in early December on what British officials called V-Day.

“It means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the New Year after being on my own for most of the year,” she said after receiving the first injection at University Hospital ­Coventry.

Terry Ponitkos illustration for Matthew Benns oped

Perhaps it is the stoic nature of a generation that grew up through the Blitz and a world war, but there does not seem to be any of that selfish anti-vaxxer, “protect my liberty by letting everyone else get vaccinated” ­nonsense.

Certainly my mum cannot wait until she has her second shot. Her first trip out of the house since March was to the hospital and she has worn a track round the garden and up and down the stairs with her daily walk.

And Mrs Benns has a clear message for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is waiting until March to roll out the Oxford University AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines after they get TGA approval: “Just get on with it.”

Menzies Health Institute infectious diseases expert Professor Nigel McMillan agreed it would be a good idea to get on with rolling out the ­vaccine as soon as possible.

“It would seem sensible if they do, clearly things are getting to a tipping point in Sydney,” he said following the latest breach of border quarantine in Western Sydney.

If you are going to have a crisis why wait for things to get really bad when you can get ahead of the curve?

Because, brace yourself for bad news, rolling out the vaccine does not mean everything is going to be fixed and we can go back to normal after Easter.

Queensland and Victoria are still going to keep asking NSW to do all the heavy lifting with overseas arrivals and then knee-jerking the borders closed every time there is an incy bincy breach.

Brian Pinker, 82, receives the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Sam Foster in England. Picture: Steve Parsons

“The problem is how long are we going to keep doing this?” Prof McMillan asked of the border closures.

It is bad for the economy, it is bad for morale and it is really annoying. Rolling out the vaccine is a fix, but it is not a quick fix.

“At what point do we say we have enough vaccinated people?” he said. “We are never going to get rid of the coronavirus, we are going to have to live with it. So when do we have enough vaccinated people to say ‘let’s start treating this like the flu’?”

In his mind he is thinking around 60 per cent of the population vaccinated — that’s all the vulnerable ­people and the frontline workers — and on the current timetable he ­believes that will not be until September at the very earliest.

Last weekend India joined the UK and the US in giving vaccines emergency approval. They clearly have a bigger crisis than we do in Australia and it is right that they get priority on receiving vaccines.

But CSL has been contracted to manufacture 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine right here in Australia for Australians.

That’s a good start because if getting my mum out to the shops in the UK is good for the British economy then getting Aussies moving and having more than 10,000 people at the Sydney Cricket Ground is certainly good for the Australian economy.

Who knows, I might even get the chance to see her again.

Originally published as Why all Australians should get the coronavirus vaccine