Outbreaks boost desire to get the jab

Delta strain outbreaks of Covid-19 in NSW and Victoria and the ­ensuing strict lockdowns have reduced reported vaccine hesitancy by a third across Australia.

People line up to get a Covid-19 vaccine or test at the new dual clinic in Roseville, in Sydney’s north, on Tuesday. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Delta strain outbreaks of Covid-19 in NSW and Victoria and the ­ensuing strict lockdowns have reduced reported vaccine hesitancy by a third across Australia.

According to a tracking survey by the University of Melbourne taken last week, 21.5 per cent of the adult population was vaccine hesitant, compared to 33 per cent at the end of May.

Vaccine acceptance is rising in all states and age groups.

During the fourth week of the lockdown in Greater Sydney, vaccine hesitancy plummeted to 14.6 per cent in NSW, from 33 per cent eight weeks earlier. Only 7.6 per cent of NSW respondents said they would refuse a Covid vaccine.

The Melbourne Institute’s new data insights tool, the Vaccine Hesitancy Report Card, reveals the most reluctant to receive a jab are those aged 18-44 years and Queenslanders, with three-in-10 of those respondents in the hesitant camp. In mid-May, a fortnight before Melbourne’s earlier lockdown, hesitancy among these groups was more than 40 per cent.

Hesitancy is defined as respondents “not willing to be vaccinated” or those who say “don’t know” when asked whether they will be vaccinated.

In mid-May, 19 per cent of adults surveyed said they were not willing to be vaccinated but this has slumped to 11.8 per cent nationally. Over the period, the proportion who were unsure fell from 16.5 per cent to 9.7 per cent, with the report saying this is the target group most likely to be influenced by policy changes.

“Policies to reduce vaccine hesitancy need to be carefully targeted at populations most vulnerable and most likely to transmit the virus, as well as geographic areas with the lowest vaccination rates,” the report, released on Wednesday, states.

Melbourne Institute professorial fellow Anthony Scott told The Australian the drop in hesitancy was good news, “although it’s a slight disappointment that it takes an outbreak to encourage people to get vaccinated”.

Professor Scott said the 31 per cent rate of vaccine hesitancy in Queensland “remains an issue going forward”.

“How will that work when the nation is trying to open up later in the year and there are states with a large proportion of unvaccinated people?,” he said.

“Government needs to get into those communities, perhaps using vaccine buses. We need to be taking vaccines to the people rather than the other way around.”

Professor Scott, a health economist, warned that state infighting over vaccines and lockdowns was counter-productive and would hinder the ability of states to learn from each other about how to combat hesitancy and to run effective rollouts.

The data has been drawn from the institute’s Taking the Pulse of the Nation Survey of 1200 adults.

A pulse survey last month showed the unvaccinated have a very strong preference for Pfizer: of the 80 per cent who expressed a preference (20 per cent said they would be willing to have any vaccine), 78 per cent prefer Pfizer.

On Wednesday, NSW authorities announced stricter lockdown measures and a four-week extension in Greater Sydney.

Scott Morrison said the nation’s vaccination rate was running at more than 1 million jabs a week, with about 40 per cent of all doses administered in the past seven days occurring in NSW.

The Prime Minister encouraged Australians to get vaccinated “so we’ll be living life different at Christmas than we are now”.

“What we’re seeing overseas is when countries do reach those much higher vaccination rates, then that does give their governments a lot more options in the suppression limitations,” Mr Morrison said, adding: “Lockdowns become a thing of the past when you’re at that level.”