We have a plan to emerge from Covid-19. It is a plan with an impressive four, count ‘em four, distinct phases.
In the vernacular of political marketing, it lays out four possible futures, one of which oddly is the present but not this present, another present where everything is better.
Rejecting the tyranny of the Gregorian calendar, the National Cabinet has decided this new and improved present, this here and now if it wasn’t for the here and now, includes halving international arrivals, increasing Commonwealth facilitated flights into the country, trialling quarantining at home for vaccinated travellers and developing digital means to establish vaccination status.
What was released last week and signed off by all state and territory leaders in the National Cabinet is a plan in search of a plan, a plan lacking in detail, the most critical of which are the thresholds of vaccination before we can move from the present present to the new and improved present before flying off into the future which ironically involves not flying off anywhere at least early on.
But right now, it’s all we have. We’re about to zoom into the future where everything is more or less the same although smaller and Apple has a new phone out. And there are big scary political and social problems associated with it. We need only look at Phase Two with just a snifter of Phase Three to see when some problems will arise.
“Easing restrictions like lockdowns and border controls on vaccinated people (Phase Two).”
“Exempting vaccinated people from all domestic restrictions (Phase Three).”
Having looked long and hard at the anti-vax movement in this country, they are bound to be upset that they will miss out on certain freedoms of movement and association. Never light on hyperbole, they will bleat about deep state chicanery and of a new Apartheid, the worst kind of Apartheid, the kind against them.
In any one of a number of recent polls on vaccine take up (and it’s all we have at the moment in terms of overall intent), around one in six Australians say they will never be vaccinated against Covid-19. The figure has bounced around a bit and the mixed messaging on the Astra-Zeneca has not helped. Back in February the figure was one in eight. Many of these people can safely be lumped into the vaccine hesitant, people who need to be convinced, people who seek more information from reliable sources. It’s not an irrational position. My guess is many of the hesitant will roll up their sleeves at some point.
That leaves a hard core of around five per cent of Australian adults who will choose not to vaccinate. Not now. Not ever.
Instead of dismissing these people as the cranks they are, there is all manner of hand-wringing with brows furrowed on the issue of legal discrimination and coercive policy.
At face value this is peculiar given Australia has active discriminations already in place for those who choose not to vaccinate their children. No jab, no pay was introduced in 2015 and expanded upon three years later which withholds three welfare payments – Child Care Benefit, the Child Care Rebate and a portion of the fortnightly Family Tax Benefit Part A per child – for parents of children under 20 years of age who are not fully immunised or on a recognised catch-up schedule and imposes fines on childcare centres that admit unvaccinated children.
That policy led to a spike in catch-up of childhood vaccinations for the common good.
And people have been required to vaccinate against a range of diseases before being permitted entry into certain countries for years with nary a murmur of discontent.
If a person chooses not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 by the time we hit the mythical Phase Four, they’ll likely get Covid-19 and without the protection against the virus’s most serious symptoms, stand a bigger chance of falling ill, will be more likely to be hospitalised and admitted to ICU and finally, no longer requiring any assistance whatsoever besides picking out a nice casket.
If that weren’t enough, many will face the horrors of long Covid, an especially nasty development not much talked about by anti-vaxxers where Covid symptoms remain for months or longer, affecting cognitive function and cardiac, renal and respiratory health.
But there’s more to it than that. If an adult chooses not to be vaccinated, they are likely to be more infectious and infectious for longer, so the decision to vaccinate goes beyond individual choice. There is a common or shared responsibility.
By legal definition, adults are not eight years of age. They should not need the well-worn lecture about actions and consequences. What sort of a game show would it be if the contestant chooses the box over the money, only to find the box empty and then gets to make another choice?
When it comes to pleas of discrimination, let’s not forget anti-vaxxers are currently insisting they won’t provide services or goods to people who have been vaccinated. They won’t serve people in their stores who wear masks. But that’s an active discrimination anti-vaxxers are perfectly comfortable with.
Put the sandal on the other foot and it’s bleating, stubborn, inexplicable protests and arrests for assaulting police before the inevitable crowd-funding exercise which won’t simply pay for any legal expenses incurred but provide a bit of free spending money to help them through the trauma.
Anti-vaxxers are a dying breed. They seem not to appreciate that at the moment and indeed, we’ll have to get to Phase Four to do the body count.
The argument that governments should create policy that doesn’t discriminate between people who make sound choices and those who consistently and obsessively choose badly, means our escape from government-imposed Covid-19 restrictions will be delayed, maybe even requiring a Phase Five.
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