Newspoll: Most Australians are very keen to be vaccinated
Only 11 per cent of adult voters say they’ll refuse to get jabbed, suggesting the PM’s December target of 70 per cent can be met.
Only 11 per cent of adult Australian voters say they will flatly refuse to get jabbed, suggesting the country will be able to meet the Morrison government’s vaccination target of 70 per cent vaccine coverage by December if supply is maintained.
The result of the special Newspoll coincides with the announcement of a major boost for the national cabinet’s four phase plan to reopen the country, with the Therapeutic Goods Administration on Monday approving the use of Moderna vaccines alongside the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs.
Scott Morrison said the approval would add 10 million doses to the vaccine pile between September and December, helping to edge the country closer to achieving between 70 and 80 per cent vaccine coverage by Christmas.
“This means we have an additional 25 million doses of Moderna to add to the 125 million Pfizer doses and 53 million AstraZeneca doses we have already started rolling out,” the Prime Minister said.
“This is another important tool that we have in our battle against Covid. We’ll have it in our hands and we’ll have the jabs in our arms starting from next month. This is our plan to ensure that we get Australia to where we need to get to this year.”
The approval came as residents of Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore, Ballina and the Northern Rivers entered a snap seven-day lockdown from 6pm on Monday after a man in his 50s tested positive for Covid-19.
While restrictions were extended in NSW after the state recorded 262 locally acquired cases, more than 1.6 million regional Victorians will be released from lockdown on Tuesday after the regions failed to record any cases since the clampdown on Thursday night.
Mr Morrison said Australia was “going through one of the toughest parts of this Covid pandemic” and he understood that people were frustrated.
“I know they’re sick of it. I know they’re angry,” he said. “What we have to do now is recognise the reality of the challenge we have in front of us. None of us likes it … But there are no short cuts here.”
“We have to not let any voices of negativity overwhelm our optimism for the future, and we have to push through. We have achieved what few countries have. We can’t throw it away now because of any impatience.”
The special Newspoll survey conducted for The Australian shows that vaccine hesitancy has fallen dramatically since the start of the year when 25 per cent of the population said they either planned to not get vaccinated or hadn’t made up their mind.
The survey also revealed that governments would have to convince more Australians to take-up the AstraZeneca jab, with about one-third of unvaccinated people saying they would prefer to wait for Pfizer.
The Newspoll, based on surveys of 1527 voters aged over 18, shows the weighted number of people claiming to have already received a single or both doses of a vaccine was 46 per cent.
Of those planning to get vaccinated, only 7 per cent said they were comfortable with getting either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer jabs whereas 33 per cent said they would prefer to wait for Pfizer.
Three per cent of adult Australians reported they had not yet made up their minds about getting vaccinated.
The poll, conducted between August 4 and August 7, suggests 86 per cent of voters had either been vaccinated or were planning to get jabbed compared, with 75 per cent six months ago before the Delta strain hit Australia.
A similar Newspoll question in February showed 17 per cent of Australian voters would refuse to get vaccinated while 8 per cent didn’t know.
As lockdowns across the country are maintained to suppress the Delta variant, Mr Morrison on Monday said about $2bn in Covid-19 payments had been paid to one million Australians.
He said a rapid acceleration in the vaccine rollout, with 23 per cent of eligible Australians now fully vaccinated, was getting the country back on track. “In the seven-day period up until Sunday, 1.3 million doses were delivered in a one-week period,” he said. “That is almost the population of the city of Adelaide, in just one week.”
Despite Moderna being the most effective vaccine to jab children aged over 12, TGA head John Skerritt said a decision was made with the pharmaceutical company to “do the adults first”.
“The data on the teenagers does look good and we should be able to make a decision again convening the expert advisory committee within the next three or four weeks on an application for use in 12 and over,” Professor Skerritt said. “The other really encouraging thing about Moderna is, even after six months, it’s proving to be 93 per cent efficacious against any infection, 98 per cent against severe disease and 100 per cent against death.”
The Morrison government has been frustrated with the recent undermining of AstraZeneca by NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard and Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young, who have both been blamed for stoking fears over the vaccine.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday announced the state would allow government-run clinics to offer AstraZeneca jabs to 18-to-39 year olds in a bid to boost vaccination rates.
Newspoll showed vaccine hesitancy was stronger among Labor and Greens voters, with 11 per cent of both cohorts claiming they would not get vaccinated compared with 8 per cent of Coalition voters. Coalition voters were also more likely to have already been vaccinated (55 per cent) compared with 45 per cent of Labor voters and 31 per cent of Greens voters.
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Despite the number of younger adults falling seriously ill with the Delta strain, the numbers of those refusing to get jabbed was strongest among the 35 to 49 year olds at 14 per cent, and at 12 per cent among those aged 50 to 64 years old. Younger people aged 18 to 34 were less opposed at 11 per cent and only 8 per cent of those aged over 65 said they were not planning to get vaccinated.
Women voters were significantly more inclined than male voters to wait for Pfizer vaccines.
YouGov head of public affairs and polling Campbell White said “self-reported survey questions on health behaviours are known to be influenced by a social desirability effect, with people more likely to self-report having already done something they think they should be doing. This is particularly likely when participants may have already scheduled a vaccination appointment.
“Accordingly, the proportion of those polled who said they had been vaccinated has been weighted from 54 per cent to 46 per cent to reflect published Covid-19 vaccination information.”
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