Occasional Crikey columnist Charles Richardson recently asked me: “How in the name of all that’s holy do you expect Australia, with its Trumpist politics, to reach a vaccination rate of 75-80% of all people within six months, or indeed ever?”
It’s a question worthy of further investigation. This is arguably the key number because once we reach it, short of an effective anti-viral treatment miraculously appearing, that will be as good as it gets for a while. One of the few benefits of Australia’s “not a race” vaccine rollout is that gives us the opportunity to compare what other nations achieved.
The UK handled its rollout extremely well but appears to have tapered off at around 72% first dose (there also seems to be around a 5% drop-off rate between first and second doses). That said, first dose rates are still growing (albeit slowly) and will hit 75% in the coming months.
There are a few mitigating factors that don’t apply in Australia. First, the UK has recorded almost 7 million infections, and many of these people, especially the younger ones, appear very happy with natural infection conferring a strong immune response compared to vaccines. The UK has struggled to achieve high vaccination rates amongst ethnic communities. Vaccine hesitancy remains at 20% for the Black British community, compared with 4% for all people. By contrast, we’re so far seeing the opposite in Australia, partly due to the outstanding work of community leaders, especially in Western Sydney, coupled with the NSW’s government’s soft vaccination passport work requirements.
In fact, some of the highest vaccinated LGAs are located multi-cultural Western Sydney.
Also, the UK isn’t yet vaccinating children aged under 15 (unless in rare circumstances), while 16- and 17-year-olds started widespread vaccinations on August 23. Australia is likely to have 12-year-olds vaccinated before England does. It seems likely that we will breeze past the UK, which itself looks like it will end up at around 75% before kids get vaccinated.
The US is a more difficult comparison, largely due to the wild fluctuations between states. Massachusetts has reached a respectable 75% first dose rate, whereas rural Wyoming (where Trump garnered 69.94% of the vote in 2020) is stuck at only 44.9%. One suspects most of Australia is far more inline with New England than The Cowboy State.
A far better benchmark is Canada which, like Australia, started slowly but accelerated rapidly and has maintained one of the highest vaccination rates since May. First doses have hit 74.1% and increased almost 3% in August, likely heading towards 80%.
The world’s fastest vaccinators remain largely smaller, usually island nations. Singapore recently hit 80.5% first dose this week as it resumes green-lane travel with Germany, Hong Kong and Brunei. The United Arab Emirates continues to lead all comers with 87% of people receiving their first dose. Caseloads there remain at around 1000 per day, with some blaming the lower efficacy Sinopharm vaccine and the country’s very porous borders.
Israel, while lauded for its vaccination program, remains back at only 60.6% fully dosed, with older citizens now receiving their third booster shot. Israel’s rollout remains hamstrung by lower vaccination rates among ultra-orthodox Jewish and Arab communities.
The biggest question for Australia revolves around the significant differences between states. Western Australia and Queensland, which have maintained a COVID zero policy, lag other states by around 10%. NSW has given a first dose to 55% of people, which is impressive, but still a fair way from 80% (and almost every country aside from the smaller nations has struggled to get from 60% to 80%).
Australia has one ace up its sleeve: the (unwarranted and largely incorrect) criticism of the AstraZeneca vaccine (which has been shown to be slightly less effective than Pfizer, though efficacy might not wane as quickly), and lionisation of Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines has created an unusual latent demand from millions of people who have been “waiting for Pfizer”.
Most other nations rolled out AZ and Pfizer at roughly similar pace, so never created this FOMO effect. Combined with the likelihood of some sort of French-style vaccine passport being required, 80% vaccination appears achievable — perhaps even likely.
With upwards of 12 million doses arriving in September, we’ll know a lot more. The only country that didn’t treat vaccination as a race may end up coming close to winning.
I don’t understand why crikey is publishing opinion pieces on the CoVid19 pandemic from a guy without any relevant qualifications and an obvious conflict of interest with his ownership of a travel booking website which would, for a short while anyway, benefit from reduced quarantine measures. Given he’s in IT, I thought I’d see if turning him off and then back on after 10 seconds would fix the problem but sadly no, his piece and last week’s ad hominem attacks are still on your website.
That is a study conducted in Israel. Can you cite a similar study that shows a similar immune response in the UK? And if so, why did you not?
Fascinating that this guy, in order to push his own agenda, has managed to cherry pick a single study that just happens to align with said agenda. What he fails to mention is that no study yet has managed to show that a full-blown infection has been able to prevent re-infection…..assuming the person who gets it survives. Schwab also ignores the fact that every new infection is also yet another chance for the virus to mutate into a new variant-more deadly, more infectious-or both. He also seems to be blissfully unaware of the potential long-term implications of Long Covid……none of which is as much of a risk for those who are fully vaccinated.
Of course, as you rightly point out, this single paper (not peer-reviewed, btw) does not even remotely support the claim he is making. That is Scwhab all over, if I am being honest.
At least one contrary study: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html
“Advertorial”.
What’s the point of this piece? Adam’s framing it as an Olympics competition; ‘we can win it’. Most of his prognostications have been wrong, so I wouldn’t bet on this one. As usual, jumping to conclusions means leaving something vital out of the calculation. In this case it’s the possible collapse of the health system while we’re waiting for our gold medal. Things would have been better if we’d been vaccinated when there was no covid and no Delta to speak of, that is, before June this year. As things stand, the health systems of NSW and VIC will be under colossal pressure before the vaccines have been injected and taken effect. And that’s despite the imposing of harsh lockdowns, which Adam himself railed against earlier! Without them, the health systems would be in a lot more trouble now. Being so irredeemably late in getting vaccination underway is not the triumphal advantage Adam Schwab seems to think it is. Making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear is Morrison’s and Gladys’s game.
Pretty ‘funny(?)’ watching Scotty FM making all these big announcements about ‘deals (with other countries)’ for their vaxes – because the lazy buffoon didn’t cut enough deals originally – that these are to cover his PR arse now.
I wonder how many of these borrowed vaccines will expire before they make it into an arm.
The 400K doses from Singapore shipment expire in Nov but I’m far more concerned about the “million doses from Poland” which were hailed as our deliverance a couple of weeks ago.
Something as unstable as Phizzer requiring -70C storage, from a country not generally noted for its standards, after an unusually hot summer does not seem to be very reassuring.
If his-story tells us anything I suppose Schemo’s got those reserved for Qld, NT, Vic, WA and the ACT?