Rita Panahi: Vaccine go-slow fine if you’ve nothing to lose

Australia can’t afford to be cut off from the rest of the world any longer, so why is there no urgency with the vaccine rollout?

Australia’s slow vaccine rollout is frustrating for those with skin in the game. Picture: Mohd Rasfan/AFP.

The glacial pace of Australia’s coronavirus vaccine rollout doesn’t appear to be troubling public health officials or our political leaders.

Australia started administering COVID-19 vaccines on February 22, later than much of the world, and one would hope that late start would see us benefit from the experience overseas.

But far from adopting best practice and getting as many people vaccinated as quickly and safely as possible, every state and territory has failed to meet the government’s own targets.

It’s now highly unlikely that we’ll reach the goal of having every adult immunised by October, putting in doubt plans to re-open the country and resume international travel.

Thus far just over 110,000 Australians have received the vaccine and it’s certain that we will miss the target of four million vaccines by March 31, and miss it by an enormous margin.

In contrast, Israel has managed to vaccinate 200,000 a day despite having less than half of Australia’s population.

However, the political class and health bureaucrats are rather relaxed about Australia’s slow progress. We are told there is no urgency with the vaccine rollout; health department secretary Brendan Murphy says it is “not a race”. Comments dutifully reiterated by the Prime Minister and several state leaders.

One wonders whether the politicians are running the country or unelected health officials who have a rather narrow focus on what constitutes success.

COVID-19 isn’t running amok in Australia causing unnecessary deaths and hospitalisations, but that is only because our country has effectively been cut off from the rest of the world for the past year.

That has come with enormous cost, with unprecedented levels of government debt and decimation of sectors including tourism, hospitality and higher education.

If you’re a small-business owner who has watched your life’s work slowly destroyed, you’d hope there was a little more urgency from those in charge.

Those with skin in the game feel differently than bureaucrats on full salaries with no fear of losing their livelihoods.

We need to dramatically accelerate the vaccine rollout, Australia cannot afford to remain a ‘prison’ island cut off from the rest of the world. We don’t have a COVID-19 crisis but that should not be the only measure of success.

It’s time to also reconsider the disproportionate power that public health officials exercise. Politicians need to have the courage and judgment to make decisions on all the available evidence, not just be laser focused on one public health issue.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

@RitaPanahi