Susie O’Brien: Vaccine mandate punishes kids who have suffered enough

As jabs are approved for young children, Dan Andrews should stop crowing about his pandemic “triumph” and ensure kids aren’t locked out of the life they’ve been missing.

Let our kids enjoy the summer they’ve been looking forward to for so long. Picture: Tim Hunter

It’s an outrageous vanity for Premier Daniel Andrews to dub his government’s pandemic response a “triumph”.

Victorians suffered through the longest lockdowns in the world. There’s nothing triumphant about that.

Aftershocks of this dark time are still reverberating social, emotionally and economically, particularly for unvaccinated children aged over 12 who are locked out of their daily lives.

Andrews is refusing to help them, instead spending his time crowing about his popularity at the height of the pandemic and worrying about this translating to votes come election time.

In the meantime, real progress is being made elsewhere, with children aged five to 11 cleared to receive the Pfizer jab as early as January following provisional approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

This is welcome news, but Andrews must also make it clear that children under 12 who are not vaccinated will not be locked out of shops, playgrounds or services.

Children have suffered enough and deserve to enjoy their freedom after the past 18 months of lockdown.

Premier Daniel Andrews is now using the Omicron variant as a reason to wait to remove vaccine mandates. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Parents should be reassured that the vaccine, when finally passed by Australia’s stringent regulators, will be safe.

More than 10 million vaccine doses have been administered in this state alone; if there was a problem, we would know about it by now.

But mums and dads should not be pressured into vaccinating their children because of the threat of lockouts.

Given that we are now at 93 per cent coverage, we should treat all people the same and remove all mandates and proof of vaccine status. We should follow NSW and do so when we reach 95 per cent vaccinated or December 15 – whatever comes first. Andrews – incompetent as ever – is reluctant to do so, and is now using the Omicron variant as a further reason to wait.

Reports that the Omicron virus may have a greater impact on younger children should not be used to delay the vaccine rollout. In fact, it makes it even more vital.

Authorities must ensure primary school students are vaccinated before school goes back next year.

The lack of vaccination for children under 12 means primary schools are fertile breeding grounds for the virus.

There are about 2000 children infected right now who are attending more than 70 schools.

Daniel Andrews should turn his attention to ensuring he does nothing to inhibit the vaccine rollout of children proceeding immediately in this state. Picture: AFP

They need to be vaccinated as soon as possible.

The green light to jab younger children comes as South African health authorities have raised concerns about the increasing number of children being hospitalised with moderate to severe symptoms of the Omicron variant

There are also reports from the same country that the variant is particularly affecting those
under five.

Children under the age of two now make up 10 per cent of the hospital admissions in some South African provinces, although it’s not clear whether this is because of the Omicron variant or because children aren’t vaccinated.

Given this lack of hard data, we should not make kneejerk decisions based on early evidence to emerge from this country.

The World Health Organisation says it has not seen any reports of deaths related to the new variant despite a sharp rise in case numbers in many countries.

While a 15-year-old died of Covid recently in South Africa and a 17-year-old is in ICU, it’s not known if they have the Omicron variant.

There are 25 Omicron cases in NSW, but none of them has yet been hospitalised.

While more transmissible, Omicron does appear at this early stage to be less virulent overall.

It’s to be hoped that current vaccines will be effective in stopping people from catching Omicron, or that existing vaccines will be modified if needed.

More should be known within the next two or three weeks.

Let our kids enjoy the summer they’ve been looking forward to for so long. Picture: Tim Hunter

Until then, we should heed the advice of Professor Paul Kelly, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, who says that “as far as we know, the vaccine works against this new virus”.

It is welcome that nearly 80 per cent of Australian parents say they will vaccinate children aged five to 12 in a recent study.

But this still leaves out a significant proportion of children who do not deserve to be further stopped from enjoying the hard-earned delights of their holidays.

While unvaccinated 12-year-olds are struggling to understand why they can’t play sport, go to the cinema or go shopping with their family and friends, vaccination lockouts would be even more damaging for younger children.

Rather than crowing about his past triumphs, Andrews should turn his attention to ensuring he does nothing to inhibit the vaccine rollout of children proceeding immediately in this state.

He should also remove all vaccine mandates relating to children, and let our kids enjoy the summer they’ve been looking forward to for so long.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist