Governor-General David Hurley’s plea: get jabbed or face the risks

Stop fretting and get jabbed, says straight-talking Governor-General David Hurley: a sad granddad who hasn’t met the family’s newest baby.

Governor-General David Hurley is pleading with Australians to cast hesitancy aside and get vaccinated. In March General Hurley got his first Vaxzevria (formerly AstraZeneca) dose in Canberra from Dr John Howe.

Do it. That’s Governor-General David Hurley’s frank message to anyone hesitant about a Covid-19 vaccine — and it’s only partly because he and wife Linda are desperate to see their newborn granddaughter Sabrina.

The retired army general has written a passionate opinion piece for The Australian urging hesitant Australians to either get the jab or face the consequences: illness, potential death, national paralysis.

“Vaccination is the way ahead for us, to break out of where we are at the moment. Otherwise we get into a cycle that none of us wants to be in,” General Hurley said in an interview, describing himself as “enormously frustrated” at not being able to travel the country as usual.

“If people don’t want to get vaccinated, that’s their decision, but they should be aware that if there are any consequences for that decision, they’re responsible for them. It’s a personal decision but with that comes a consequence – ill health for you and detriment to the rest of the community.

“So make up your own mind, but I would urge everybody to get vaccinated. It’s not as if (vaccination) is something brand new. This is tried and proven. This is the route for us to control different threats to us. So follow this one. Do it.”

General Hurley, who with Mrs Hurley has been double-vaccinated with Vaxzevria (formerly AstraZeneca), said he personally knows hesitant people and has spoken to local government leaders whose communities have high rates of hesitancy.

Part of the problem is complacency to deadly disease, thanks to high rates of childhood vaccination, meaning many Australians have never encountered the devastation wrought by polio or measles, he said.

“The way we’ve adapted to typhoid, cholera and those illnesses – when you’re travelling overseas there are health warnings. That’s our relationship with them now. They don’t affect us at all really directly in Australia.

“We may have lost our sense of vulnerability, but if that hasn’t been reawakened recently, I don’t know what will.”

In his opinion piece, General Hurley writes: “Some might say I speak to you from a position of privilege. True, perhaps, in the sense of where I live. But like many of you, my family – children, and grandchildren – live in lockdown. Linda and I haven’t seen our grandson in months and we are not sure when we will be able to meet our granddaughter who was born just a week ago. FaceTime helps but it is no substitute for the human touch.”

He said his wife had only just got over the “weeping through every FaceTime” phase of desperately missing that first cuddle with baby Sabrina, daughter of the Hurleys’ Sydney-based son Marcus and wife Rose.