Minister slams misinformation on unvaccinated COVID-19 deaths

Queensland’s Health Minister has debunked another round of vaccine misinformation that unvaccinated people were not making up a large proportion of those getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19.

Queensland recorded 18 deaths on Friday from the disease, its largest daily toll for the pandemic.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath had hit out at vaccine misinformation.Credit: Matt Dennien

The youngest of those cases was a person in their 30s who was not vaccinated. Five of the other casualties, with ages ranging from their 60s to their 90s, had not had a vaccine jab either.

Two of the people who died were double-dosed and three had received a booster, with the figures on Friday mirroring many results over the past week where people who died had varying levels of vaccination.

Ms D’Ath said she had seen recent misinformation stating that because unvaccinated people were not the only ones dying, there was no need for vaccines.

“I’m seeing misinformation … that when we report 18 [deaths] and six were unvaccinated, there is this mistruth out there that this is somehow evidence that vaccines don’t work,” she said.

“This is the figure people need to understand – the unvaccinated population only makes up about 8 per cent of all eligible Queenslanders, but currently they’re making up between 20 and 30 per cent of our deaths.

“When [Chief Health Officer John] Gerrard and I visited Redcliffe hospital yesterday and spoke to the ICU staff, they had four people in ICU this week and three of those people were unvaccinated.”

Dr Gerrard said Queensland’s strong vaccination rate was one of the main factors in avoiding worst-case scenarios of thousands of people hospitalised every day in the current wave.

“Today is two years since I saw Queensland’s first COVID-19 case on the Gold Coast and never at that time did we expect to see such low numbers of patients in our hospitals or intensive care units as we approached this peak,” he said.

“This is quite extraordinary – of course [it is] all due to vaccination and the work of healthcare workers delivering those vaccines.”

Queensland’s vaccination rate was 91.9 per cent of eligible people with one dose, 89.33 per cent with two doses, and a little over 1.3 million boosters.

The first-dose rate has slowed to a crawl and the second-dose rate has also noticeably slowed in recent weeks, however the booster rate is rising rapidly.

In an effort to get more people their first, second or even third shot of vaccine, the government has announced another blitz this weekend, with 50 schools across the state acting as vaccination hubs for children.

About 30 per cent of five- to 11-year-olds have had their first dose of the vaccine, with authorities keen to lift that rate before all students return to schools from February 7.

Dr Gerrard said they would wait for advice from federal health authorities before changing the definition of fully vaccinated to include booster shots, saying it was “not Queensland’s place” to act on its own on the move.