Duty and the jab

Inside the Melbourne Exhibition Centre COVID-19 Vaccination Centre. Picture: Getty

My fellow Australians. We are now well into the second year of the coronavirus. This trial, this adversity, will last longer than the Spanish flu, even though it will be less deadly.

Our challenge isn’t so much to frantically contain the number of deaths, as is the case in India and Brazil, but to manage the virus’s impact from a broad range of perspectives. We need to navigate the turmoil and the fear of the pandemic by remaining united. We need to ensure our key alliances and trade relationships remain structurally sound (our relationship with China has been damaged and is in need of repair or recalibration). And we need to vaccinate perhaps 80 per cent or more of the adult population.

I am concerned, though, that a significant proportion of those eligible to receive the jab may refuse to have it. The virus must be stopped and contained this year so we can begin the process of rebuilding an even better version of our pre-corona community.

In times past a directive to take a vaccine was followed more or less without question, but not so today. There have always been and no doubt there always will be naysayers (as well as deniers, appeasers and the deluded) who simply refuse to comply with whatever is required to protect the collective. This may be based on genuine concern, but it must be countered and offset by a wider program of community support and expectation.

At the beginning of this virus the Australian penchant for antsy, non-conformist behaviour was on full display with Bondi beachgoers flouting the rules. But as the virus took hold the national mood shifted in favour of compliance with social distancing and mask-wearing. The reason for the mood shift, for the uptick in compliance, wasn’t anything to do with the government. Compliance was policed by the community. Social-distance flouters were called out. Non-mask wearers were challenged. Hoarders (especially of toilet paper) were ridiculed. There is no stronger force than a united community determined to beat a virus, or indeed any external threat.

And to be fair to those wavering about taking the jab, there has been reason enough to mistrust authority in the recent past. The global financial crisis exposed flaws in the free market system; royal commissions have exposed errant or egregious behaviour in parts of the aged care industry, financial services and the church. So it is perhaps understandable that among our compatriots there is a reticence to comply with requests to get the vaccine. Especially when there is a reduced threat to the population due to closed borders.

What is required, my fellow vaccinated and vaccination-inclined Australians, is a broader cultural discussion of the issue and the establishment of an ecosystem of compliance, where everyday conversations normalise the idea of vaccination.

I suspect that maybe 10 per cent of the population will remain disinclined to take the vaccine. It’s easier to change non-mask-wearers’ behaviour because their choice is paraded for all to see. But I’d reason that a portion of those Australians who say they are disinclined to get the jab – the waverers and can’t-be-bothered types – are swayable.

I want the Australian nation at a grassroots level to initiate the discussions, and provide the support, to create the expectation that every adult will “do their duty” to family, to community, to the country. We need to pull together and do the right thing to beat this virus, which is the great trial, the great adversity, of our time.