Epidemiologist Professor Nancy Baxter’s bold claim on Covid vaccine mandates

One of Australia’s leading epidemiologists has made a bold claim about Covid vaccine mandates and the risk of transmission.

A top epidemiologist has claimed transmission isn’t the major reason to have vaccine mandates anymore, as most other Covid-related rules have ceased.

Professor Nancy Baxter, from University of Melbourne’s school of population and global health, made the admission to Victoria’s pandemic declaration accountability and oversight committee on Thursday.

She said another reason for the shift is because many people’s immunity against Covid has waned due to being more than six months on from their most recent dose.

“Reducing transmission isn’t the major reason to have vaccine mandates anymore,” Prof Baxter said.

“So it’s unlikely that vaccine mandates are going to result in protection of people in the workplace given other means of reducing transmission in the workplace have been eliminated in Victoria.

“I mean, density restrictions, mandatory mask wearing and recommendations for working at home – we’ve eliminated those.”

Current Victorian rules state all workers must have proof of double vaccination or exemption if they are working outside their home.

Staff in high-risk industries including healthcare, education and aged care require three doses.

Prof Baxter went on to say the axed measures had worked better against transmission than vaccine or booster mandates alone.

“It’s unclear why we’re maintaining mandatory vaccines (just for transmission purposes).

“On the other side, we do have a significant number of people in Australia that remain unprotected.”

Fifth and sixth Covid-19 vaccine doses could soon be a reality for immunocompromised Australians. Picture: Supplied

The comments come after Professor Jodie McVernon, from the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, revealed fifth and sixth Covid-19 vaccine doses could soon be a reality for immunocompromised Australians.

Professor McVernon said decisions around follow-up vaccinations would be made around how well people were protected against severe virus-related disease.

“We’ve had a relatively short window into how the medium and long-terms effects on the community will play out in populations,” she said.

“During the coming season, we had a recommendation for high-risk groups to receive vaccines that provide direct clinical protection.”

When asked by the committee if a recommendation for a fifth vaccination was on its way for 2023, Professor McVernon said it was “plausible”.

“I think it’s a plausible conclusion that it would become part of our winter recommendation in how we deal with influenza, but I think that’s a reasonable expectation. The evidence may drive us in a different direction between now and next winter, but I think that would be logically anticipated.”

However, despite widespread vaccination uptake, Professor McVernon said new, more severe Covid strains were likely before 2022 was over.

“What happens over the next six to 12 months with the circulation of Covid, as we’re seeing this relatively short duration of immunity and turnover of Covid itself in the population, is effectively immunising the population,” she said.

“How that will map out in terms of what we expect for infections in the first half and second half in 2023, we even in the scenario team don’t think we have knowledge to sufficiently predict even to the end of this year.

Professor Jodie McVernon works at Melbourne’s Doherty Institute. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“In the second half of this year, Covid being what it is, we expect to see new variants. They may change the situation again.”

This additional protection would aim to provide people with the same level of immunity as they had post-second dose in 2021.

“Essentially by giving third doses and then fourth doses to our population, we’re popping them back up to where we started off after two doses for Delta,” she said.

“Would we want to use a vaccine again to prevent transmission and therefore give it to more people in the population? That would really require something more severe to justify that.”