Young QLDers rush for AZ jab in ten-fold daily increase, as more pharmacists gear up for rollout
Queensland’s growing Covid-19 cluster has sparked an almost tenfold surge in younger people opting to get the AstraZeneca vaccine, just as hundreds more pharmacies prepare to join the rollout.
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Queensland’s growing Covid-19 cluster has sparked a record surge in younger people opting to get the AstraZeneca vaccine, just as hundreds more pharmacies in the southeast prepare to join the rollout.
A staggering 922 Queenslanders aged under 40 went out to get a dose of the AstraZeneca jab on Tuesday, an almost tenfold increase on the average daily number of younger people opting for that vaccine since April, according to federal government data.
This surge comes as New South Wales recorded its youngest death from Covid-19, a man aged 27, while a total of 54 of Queensland’s cases in the past five days have been in people aged 39 or younger.
Australian Catholic University medical sciences senior lecturer Dr Roger Lord said the “fear factor” of catching the highly transmissible Delta strain was likely driving younger people to take up the AstraZeneca jab.
“Delta comes along and it doesn’t discriminate… it’s a much more transmissible variant and it clobbers the immune system,” he said.
“Getting vaccinated means reducing the danger of the whole thing, pulling the fangs out of the beast and pushing Covid-19 back to something that is no longer a super threat, just an annoyance.”
Despite modelling showing getting younger people vaccinated will be the key to ending the cycle of snap lockdowns, under 40s are unlikely to get access to the Pfizer jab until September.
National vaccine rollout director Lieutenant General John Frewen encouraged younger people to get the AstraZeneca jab under informed consent now while stocks of Pfizer remained constrained.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has advised that the benefits of the AstraZeneca jab are greater than the risk of rare side effects during large Covid-19 outbreaks.
Among the younger Queenslanders opting to get the AstraZeneca jab this week was professional organiser Natalie Haddock, 34, who said she did not want to face the prospect of Covid-19 causing Christmas away from her family, who are interstate. She figured getting vaccinated meant adding to the jab tally that determines when lockdowns and border closures would end.
“I thought stuff it, I’ll get AstraZeneca and did a lot of research… (I found) the chances of getting a clot were slim, I’m more likely to get hit by a car on my runs every day.”
Southeast Queenslanders seeking out the AstraZeneca jab will have 224 more access points within days as additional pharmacies come online.
But Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, whose department ordered no AstraZeneca jabs in July, slammed the Commonwealth for not being able to deliver doses to pharmacies this week. “I don’t think it’s acceptable that they have to wait till next week for the Commonwealth to deliver those vaccines,” she said.
It’s understood the extra pharmacies were invited to join the rollout on Monday and had until Wednesday to accept the offer and put their order in, in a significant hastening of the normal two to three week activation process.
The jabs are expected to arrive on Monday, August 9.
Pharmacy Guild of Australia president Trent Twomey said pharmacists were ready to administer jabs as soon as they came on hand.
“Let’s not wait and lose the entire weekend, let’s get the stock into those pharmacies immediately,” he said.
“If you are over 18, get the vaccine that’s the simple message that is backed by evidence, and that’s what we should be doing.”
The federal health department confirmed there are now 1200 GPs and Commonwealth hubs administering vaccines in Queensland, with 300 of those GPs giving out Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
The 224 pharmacies coming online in the next few days join the 284 pharmacies already offering the jab in regional, rural and remote Queensland and the 94 pharmacies operating in the NSW-QLD border belt.
Hundreds more pharmacies will come online in the coming weeks and months in the state.
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Originally published as Young QLDers rush for AZ jab in ten-fold daily increase, as more pharmacists gear up for rollout
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