WA vaccine holdouts feel the financial cost of decision

Western Australia’s last unvaccinated are out of work and increasingly out of money.

Former FIFO miners who have walked away from high-paying work due to vaccine requirements are now appealing for any sort of work.

Western Australia’s last unvaccinated are out of work and increasingly out of money.

As a result of WA’s sweeping workplace vaccination rules, under which vaccinations are mandatory for anyone wishing to work in around 75 per cent of jobs in the state, opting against the protection of a Covid vaccine has also meant opting out of the workforce.

The hardcore group of holdouts continue to refuse to protect themselves despite the financial implications of their decision, despite well over a billion people around the world having safely received vaccines without complication, and despite the injections demonstrably lessening the health impacts of Covid.

While the unvaccinated represent just two per cent of the WA population, they make up more than 30 per cent of the people currently hospitalised with Covid in the state.

Along with the increased threat of complications from the Covid outbreak currently sweeping across WA, the state’s unvaccinated are also increasingly waking up to the financial implications of their decision. A number of Facebook groups have popped up where the unvaccinated can share job leads from employers either exempt from or willing to overlook the need to ensure their staff have received their injections, or offer their services to the like-minded.

They also provide an insight into what health experts have warned is the growing “underclass” of the unvaccinated and the increased disenfranchisement they feel from the rest of society.

One woman tells how the loss of her job means she is selling her house.

Others include former FIFO miners who have walked away from high-paying work due to vaccine requirements who are now appealing for any sort of work. While WA’s tough workplace mandates have helped the state record some of the highest vaccination rates in the world, health experts have warned that continuing to exclude some people from the workforce could give rise to social risks.

Jaya Dantas, a professor of international health at Curtin University’s School of Population Health, said the mandates had served their purpose and said other approaches may be needed for the remaining unvaccinated.

“If they are hard line anti-vaxxers, or if they are those who have medical conditions who really are scared about taking the vaccination, or they are those in communities that need more community education, that’s going to take time and that’s irrespective of whether we have the mandates or not,” she said.