‘Queue jumping’: Australians under 40 receiving Covid vaccine despite not being eligible
Australians under the age of 40 without underlying health conditions and who don’t work in high-risk professions are being vaccinated against Covid-19, and are being encouraged to do so by some nurses who say they want to see vaccines in the arms of people willing to receive them as soon as possible.
But a social scientist and professor with the University of Sydney who specialises in immunisation, Julie Leask, has warned about opening up the vaccination program too soon given supply of the Pfizer vaccine is still short. She says many over 50s may rush to get the vaccine should the program be officially expanded.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (Atagi) advice states that the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is preferred for those under the age of 50 due to the extremely rare risk of blood clotting associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Chase Arnesen, 32, wanted the AstraZeneca vaccine regardless. He lives in Melbourne, has no underlying health conditions or other qualifying factors to make him eligible for vaccination. But he said given many of those eligible were waiting for Pfizer, he believed he should get the AstraZeneca dose instead.
“I walked into the royal exhibition building hub last month before the boo
mers started to bother and decided I’d ask nicely if I could have one,” Arnesen said. “They asked why I was there and I admitted I wasn’t eligible but that I’d heard the AstraZeneca vaccines were woefully underused and asked if I could have one if they had sufficient supply.”
He said the nurse called over a doctor who outlined the rare risks of the AstraZeneca vaccine, before approving the immunisation.
“She pressed why I didn’t want to wait for Pfizer,” he said. “I said that the faster we all get vaccinated, the better for everyone, and that I was happy with the risks, and that it would also free up a dose for someone who decides they aren’t. All of my immediate family is overseas, and vaccinated, and I have no idea when I’ll see them again. This just felt like one tiny step towards hope, and getting the country as a whole one tick closer.”
On Friday the Victorian government sent a request to the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, asking for more vaccines, but the commonwealth has not communicated when these will arrive. This week around 50,000 people booked for their first dose of Pfizer in Victoria, and while those appointments are expected to go ahead, a similar number of bookings are being reserved for second doses.
As a result, no further new first dose Pfizer bookings or walk-up Pfizer appointments will be available this week in Victoria.
But under 50s are succeeding in getting the Pfizer vaccine in states where eligibility for vaccination in that age group only applies to those with qualifying factors, like working in aged care.
Vanessa, a 45-year-old in Tasmania, said: “The federal government eligibility checker said I’m not eligible.”
“However, the Tasmanian government vaccination booking system doesn’t ask whether you are eligible – it just asks for your date of birth,” she said. “And it let me book a vaccination, so I booked. When I turned up, nobody batted an eyelid, they just gave me a Pfizer shot and told me to book for a follow-up in three weeks”. While Vanessa said she “felt a bit bad for queue jumping”, she knew too many people over 50 who qualified for vaccination who told her they just “haven’t gotten around” to it.
“I spread the link to all friends under 50 who were wanting a vaccination,” she said.
A 24-year-old man from Brisbane, who is not yet eligible for the vaccine under the 1a or 1b categories, said he was immediately able to book an appointment after registering to be vaccinated with Pfizer on the Queensland government website.
“It took five minutes,” he said.
One doctor who works at a major health centre south of Brisbane told Guardian Australia of vaccine hesitancy among people eligible for the vaccine.
“A lot of people just don’t want them,” she said, adding there were cases of people not showing up for their allocated doses.
In Queensland, people arriving outside of priority groups may be vaccinated at the discretion of the hospital and health service, dependent on demand on the day and available vaccine supply.
A Queensland Health spokeswoman said in some locations, vaccination sites are now open to people aged 16 to 49.
“For example, the vaccination site at Caloundra indoor stadium is currently open to Queenslanders aged 16 to 49,” she said. “This vaccination location was established given recent cases to ensure people on the Sunshine Coast could access vaccinations as quickly as possible.
“Importantly, the end goal is to vaccinate as many Queenslanders as possible.” Other states, such as Victoria, while officially being more strict, are still vaccinating ineligible people who book, though a nurse working at a major vaccination hub said it did come down to luck on the day given some nurses and doctors were “incredibly tight and following the rules strictly”. People got lucky when they saw her, she said.
“I just think it’s time to get people vaccinated and open the program up and get on with it,” she said. “If someone has made the effort to come down and get vaccinated and are pro-vaccination, I think they should get it. While there was this mini-alarm that saw people rush out to get vaccinated during the recent outbreak in Victoria, things have slowed down a lot again. I just think they should open it up, because it’s so slow.”
But Leask, who works with the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Sydney’s faculty of medicine, said “we don’t have quite enough Pfizer to be able to open the program up to anyone”.
“It wouldn’t surprise me to see the age group eligible for Pfizer extended in some way, but we need to be absolutely confident that those who turn up for a Pfizer vaccine because they’re in the Pfizer-preferred age groups can get both doses,” she said.
“If we open it up to everybody, in certain states, the demand for Pfizer will exceed supply of Pfizer. I know that in some states, they are opening it up more widely because they have enough supply. And that’s fine. But let’s leave it to the program managers to run the program and make those decisions, even though the experience of those working on the ground is of course very important and relevant.”
She said those under 50 comfortable receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine should be able to.
Katie, 23, has received the Pfizer vaccine despite not yet qualifying, and told Guardian Australia: “Rather than getting angry at myself for ‘taking the vaccine from someone eligible’, I was angrier at the way those who were eligible weren’t being supported or informed enough by government bodies to receive it.
“So yes, while I did feel extremely guilty, I also knew that if there had been an issue, the nurses and other healthcare workers would have simply turned me away – which they didn’t.
“I’m also a fairly recent uni grad who has missed out on some really great work and volunteer opportunities …in a really difficult industry as a young woman in STEM. I wanted to know that once other countries started accepting flights again … that I could be one of those people to finally get my foot in the door and not be held back by inefficient government rollouts.”