Australia is a wealthy, well connected country. Is there a good explainer somewhere of why it's so far behind on the vaccine roll out? Looking at Canada, which I'd naively place in a similar category, and they're over 80%.
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federal government incompetence and malice. they hoped a locally developed vaccine would work, but it didn't. they hoped AZ produced locally would work, then poisoned the well by talking it down and allowing old people to *choose* which vaccine they got, and then failed to actually roll it out - until this week under 40s in NSW needed to have a GP appointment to get assessed for if they could receive the AZ vaccine.
the tiny stocks of Pfizer have been pissed up a wall - there's currently a hare brained plan to use it to vaccinate 17 and 18 year old so they can take their end of school exams in person.
We ordered Pfizer and AstraZenica vaccines but due to the rare blood clot issues in some younger people with AstraZenica, the government restricted that to over 50s.
Then when they realised that we didn't have enough Pfizer being made they tried to say that people under 50 can get it after consulting their doctor but by then they'd scared off lots of people. Pfizer is also harder to administer as it needs special refrigeration equipment.
A lot of people are also hesitant to getting the vaccine, perhaps because until recently most states apart from Victoria hadn't experienced large numbers of cases, deaths or lengthy lockdowns. That's started to change with the spread of the delta variant and more lockdowns etc.
We didn't have mass outbreaks so the population isn't really afraid of the virus. The locally produced astra-zeneca vaccine has a rare blood clot complication but the media amplified that to insanity level and now everyone is scared of getting it.
We only minimally hedged our bets on other vaccines and now have to wait until pfizer/moderna can get around to producing our order.
For certain populations (ie young women) the risks from AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risks from covid.
Old people shouldnt be scared yes, but young people should approach it with caution. And isn't that what the government is saying anyways- confirm with doctor and then get it?
They outweigh the risks of COVID when there is very little covid. That situation can change much faster than you can get two doses in to your arm.
Total massive cock-up plus some arrogance they had time.
It actually happened to a few countries in the APAC region. Vietnam had 2,000 cases total earlier this year and now has a nationwide curfew, 8,000 cases per day and 110,000 cases total. 5% of the population has been vaccinated.
And clearly they’ve done a better job than the US and Europe in controlling cases but mostly through some pretty draconian measures. When they shut down all eating establishments the owners are left to find alternative income.
They thought they had it under control and could wait. Clearly Vietnam is a low income country, but the economic impact has already exceeded the cost of vaccinating everyone.
Canada pre-ordered large quantities of vaccines from every credible producer quite early. So we have AZ, Pfizer, and Moderna supplies. Australia was a bit slower off the mark, comfortable with their successful island quarantine.
Canada is similar to Australia in socioeconomic political … etc
Canada 26,553 Deaths from COVID relative to Australia 920 deaths
I speculate those relative numbers played a large part in vaccine uptake difference
I like to refer to Canada as a Cold Australia.
And Australia as a hot Canada! (Not that I've been to Canada, but on paper the similarities are there)
Whistler is cold hot Canada
They bought plenty of AZ (before the clotting was an issue) but now nobody wants to get it.
The reason, like almost always when things go haywire, is political leaders messed up.