Gladys Berejiklian’s road map out of the lockdown in NSW is unashamedly tilted to rewarding the vaccinated and will push the anti-vaxxers to the fringes of society.
Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is also expected soon to offer a road map to freedom that will clearly reward the vaccinated.
On current rates, by the middle of next month, the vaccinated majority in NSW will be able to visit family and friends, dine out, drink in a pub, go to a hairdresser and attend theatre and sporting events, albeit with limited numbers. The unvaccinated will have none of these freedoms.
This will anger a minority in the conservative libertarian wing of the Coalition and it will dismay anti-vaxxers, but it says much about the prevailing public mood, not just in NSW and Australia, but across the Western world, which is increasingly intolerant of those who choose not to get the jab to help end this global pandemic.
In the US this week, Joe Biden announced sweeping new vaccine requirements on federal workers, large employers and health care staff in an effort to reduce the 80 million unvaccinated Americans.
While many Republicans are opposed to the move, it is a huge step for the President to take in a country that adopts a much more libertarian view of its freedoms and personal choices than does Australia. Biden’s actions are in response to a surge in infections and deaths almost confined to those who are unvaccinated by choice.
Across Europe, new rules are locking the unvaccinated out of pubs, restaurants, sport events and other social activities.
The NSW road map is a powerful incentive to vaccinate for those who sitting on the fence but it offers a bleak future for hard line anti-vaxxers.
According to the latest data from Melbourne University’s Melbourne Institute, 20.3 per cent of adult Australians have some form of vaccine hesitancy. While this is falling (down from about one in three in May) it is falling more slowly than it was. Making up the 20.3 per cent who are still hesitant, 8.6 per cent don’t yet know if they will get vaccinated while 11.7 per cent have said they will not.
A recent survey by YouGov found that a clear majority of Australians want fully vaccinated people to receive preferential treatment over the unvaccinated to allow them to resume normal life and travel freely both interstate and overseas once everyone has had the chance to get vaccinated.
The bottom line is Australia’s path out of lockdown will create a two-tier society. “You have been warned: come forward and get vaccinated or you won’t be able to participate,” Berejiklian said this week.
It seems most Australians are okay with that message.
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This week delivered a brutal dose of reality for those one in five Australian adults hesitant to take a Covid-19 vaccine.