Australia was lulled into complacency by its own Covid success

For months, Australia was among the world’s best Covid success stories. Now, we are way behind as our policy failures keep piling up.

When it comes to managing the pandemic, Australia is a victim of its own success.

For months, Australia was among the world’s best covid success stories. The virus had been all but eliminated and life was as close to pre-pandemic normal as anywhere in the world.

But Australia was lulled into complacency. The Prime Minister was wrong when he said about the vaccine rollout: “It’s not a race.”

The race had started long ago and Australia has been left behind. Now, as it scrambles to catch up, one expert has said the Morrison Government has “really failed” with its vaccination program.

Australia left behind as rest of world emerges from dark days

Pictures from the US and the UK this week show people getting back to normal. Countries which last year faced lengthy lockdowns as the virus ravaged communities are now emerging with vaccination rates Australia can only dream of.

On a single day this week in the UK, 93,103 people had their first dose of a covid vaccine and 195,546 people had their second dose.

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It took Britain’s partially vaccinated population to almost 40 million and Britain’s fully-vaccinated population to more than 25.7 million.

On the same day, the UK recorded zero deaths from Covid-19 – an indication of the impact vaccination can have.

In the US, under President Joe Biden, vaccination rates are soaring. More than 41 per cent of the country’s 328 million people are now fully vaccinated.

It is a stark contrast to what is happening Down Under. According to The Australian,

Australia fell from fifth to 10th among 13 progressive nations used by the Department of Health as a measuring stick for progress.

Just over 4 million doses have been administered in Australia so far.

Dr Lesley Russell is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney.

She has been a senior health policy adviser to the US Surgeon-General during the Obama administration and adviser to the Australian Labor Party.

She says Australia has “really failed when it comes to vaccinations” and the Morrison Government has “not shown the necessary flexibility or adaptability to change” when things went wrong.

“We went from managing the infections very well, and we still do that brilliantly, but that’s not enough to control a pandemic and we’ve really failed when it comes to vaccinations,” she told news.com.au.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been criticised for how his Government has handled the vaccine rollout. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

“I basically attribute that to the fact that … the Federal Government has had to make decisions around vaccines starting back last year (and) they’ve made decisions that have either turned out to be wanting or to be wrong.”

Government wasn’t quick enough to pivot after setbacks, expert says

She said Scott Morrison was unable to change course when Australia relied too heavily on vaccinations from the University of Queensland which were abandoned after trial participants returned false-positive HIV test results.

“When that failed they didn’t then turn around and say, ‘That’s not going to work, we have to do something else.’”

Dr Russell said the issues with blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine were not properly communicated to the public.

“They weren’t quick enough to investigate the science of what’s going on but also openly communicate with the public in a reassuring way,” she said.

“This is being compounded by their lack of transparency and unwillingness to admit that they’re wrong on a lot of things. We started with that pretty early when vaccine deliveries weren’t working out like they were supposed to.

“When it became obvious that the rollout was lagging, they didn’t say, ‘Let’s get this going.’”

Dr Russell said Australia should be learning lessons from the US where the President has swayed the public to get on board and is seeing great success.

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The AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine is now not recommended for those aged under 50. Picture: Loic Venance/AFP

“Look at how Joe Biden is driving vaccines forward in a nation that is much more vaccine hesitant than Australia,” Dr Russell said.

“The contrast between the urgency that Joe Biden sees around vaccination, admittedly driven by 400 deaths a day, with the complacency in Australia (where the thinking has been that) we don’t need to worry because we don’t have any virus here.”

Awareness campaigns needed to speak to Australians

She said the first thing Australia needs to do is “improve communication with the public” in a manner that should be “much more straightforward, much more informative and much more transparent”.

“They need to have informative awareness campaigns that relate to all Australians, not just those white guys in white coats talking to white Australians.

“We’re a multicultural country with people of all sorts of levels of health literacy.”

She said Health Minister Greg Hunt’s inability to be forthcoming about

how many people in aged care have been vaccinated is “appalling” and “erodes trust”.

Dr Nick Talley, editor-in-chief of the Medical Journal of Australia, said the Morrison Government made mistakes it needs to make amends for.

“I think we were as a community feeling complacent and safe. The messaging didn’t say otherwise. It was a mistake,” he told news.com.au.

“Because of the rise of the highly transmissible variants which can and do leak into the community despite our best efforts in quarantine, everyone unvaccinated is at risk until most are fully vaccinated with two doses.

“It’s a race to beat this risk. And it’s a high risk as Melbourne has again shown us. If you can, when you can, as soon as you can, get the jab.”