Head of Australia’s Covid vaccine strategy not ruling out cash incentives to achieve 80% target
The head of the country’s Covid vaccination program, Lt Gen John Frewen, says the government may yet use cash incentives to encourage take-up, as he says it is “mathematically” possible for 80% of eligible Australians to be fully immunised by December.
New targets released by Frewen’s taskforce on Tuesday forecast a rapid ramp-up of the vaccination program over the coming months, with Operation Covid Shield planning to use drive-through vaccination clinics, retail hubs and workplace vaccination programs to drive up the national vaccination rate from its current 20% level.
Frewen said that he believed the government had sufficient supplies and distribution channels coming on stream to meet the 80% double dose target, but it would depend on public willingness to get vaccinated.
“It really is about people in Australia coming forward and coming forward with some urgency to get vaccinated,” he said.
“We will have everything in place to be able to get to those sorts of numbers by the end of the year, but public willingness to come forward is key and all of us need to keep encouraging everybody to get that vaccination booked and get out and get vaccinated.”
Frewen was asked about Labor’s proposed $300 cash for jabs plan, and said incentives were being considered, “but right now Australians are coming forward.”
“Demand is still exceeding supply right now, so the time for incentives I think may be later in the year when we’re getting into some of the more hesitant sort of groups,” he said.
“We will look at all of the sorts of positive alternatives. There is cash, there is the ideas of lotteries, all these things are being discussed.”
“But what is resonating with people right now really is being able to get back to the sort of lifestyle we used to enjoy, international travel, not having to do quarantine, not having to go into lockdowns and those sorts of things.”
“Getting vaccinated is the right thing to do, it’s the right thing for individuals and it is the right thing for our nation.”
Frewen also said a new advertising campaign would be launched to coincide with increased supplies of vaccine coming on stream, with targeted messages to hesitant groups.
He also said he was confident that these supplies would be able to be distributed through the states and new distribution channels, based on each of their needs and “particular styles”.
He said decisions about who would get vaccine supplies – for example, whether companies would be allocated batches within current jurisdictional quotas or separately to the state amounts – was still to be negotiated.
“When it comes to the distribution, I will make recommendations about where major new arrivals of vaccines might go, but ultimately this is a matter for government, and they will ultimately decide,” he said.
Frewen’s suggestion that incentives may be needed came as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, clashed in parliament on Wednesday over Labor’s incentive plan which would give people $300 to get a vaccine.
Morrison said the plan was an insult to Australians and suggested Labor
would be spending $2.4bn of the $6bn to backpay people who had already chosen to get vaccinated.
“The advice that has come forward from whether it is the chief medical officer or Gen Frewen is that cash payment for jabs, a cash splash for jabs, Mr Speaker, is not their advice,” Morrison said in question time.
“It is not the advice that is being given to us, that we should be spending $6bn – splashing cash … to those who have already received the vaccine.”
When asked if Morrison was out of step with the earlier remarks of Frewen, the prime minister said: “There is certainly no suggestion of the types of incentives that he refers to.”
Labor leader Anthony Albanese said the proposal was about “using every tool at our disposal” to encourage takeup.
“Economic incentives work in a whole range of areas,” Albanese said.
“We need people to get vaccinated and most Australians, I certainly hope will go and get vaccinated. Because the big incentive is, of course, to not die and to look after your family and to look after your community, it’s the right thing to do.
“But it will start a conversation with so many people who are like, ‘I might do it, I’ll do it down the track’. I want conversations to start. And we need to use every tool at our disposal.”
The debate over Australia’s vaccination rate comes after the government released Doherty Institute modelling that showed that until vaccination rates reach 70% any outbreaks would probably see “rapid and uncontrolled” growth, and a significant number of deaths and severe cases.
The government is debating how it will manage the lifting of restrictions once vaccination levels are high enough, including through quarantine free travel and the use of a digital vaccination certificate to engage in community activities without restrictions.
But the use of digital vaccination certificates has prompted internal resistance within the Coalition, with some conservatives arguing their use is a breach of individual liberties.
The Tasmanian Liberal senator, Eric Abetz, said on Wednesday that such planned use of vaccine information “potentially threatens the freedom of Australia’s citizens and will create second-class citizens based on their health status”.“The proposed restrictions on freedoms leaves questions from precedent to freedom to privacy and the situation for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons,” Abetz said.
Figures released on Wednesday showed a new record day for vaccinations, with 213,000 jabs administered, bringing the total number of vaccines administered to 12,808,398.
This brings the vaccination rate for those over the age of 16 to 41.92% for a first dose, and 20.24% for both doses.
internet.
But a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Queensland, Katharine Gelber, said the right to free speech carried with it certain responsibilities.
“This is not a cancellation of free speech,” Gelber said on Wednesday. “This is a sensible exercise in balancing people’s rights with people’s responsibility in an era in which this kind of misinformation can cause considerable and long-term harm.
“Those who speak most frequently and loudest about free speech act as though, unlike any other human right on the face of the earth, it doesn’t carry with it commensurate responsibilities.”
YouTube has refused to detail which videos it removed but Guardian Australia has uncovered at least six videos – five of which promoted hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as treatment for Covid – which were deleted after allegedly violating the tech giant’s policies.The videos were made by Alan Jones and Outsiders hosts Rowan Dean and Rita Panahi.
In one video, Panahi said “the leftist media’s disdain for Trump” meant it was “willing to have lives lost” due to opposition to hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19.
Sky’s digital editor, Jack Houghton, has reported that videos that questioned the effectiveness of masks and lockdowns were also targeted.
Markson said the broadcaster presented “responsible” information to the public while the US president, Joe Biden, the White House chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, and the World Health Organization were the ones “actually guilty of misinformation”.
“[WHO] is the body guilty of extreme misinformation and yet this is who the tech giants like YouTube are relying on for their advice when they decide to censor an entire news network,” she said.
In May 2020, Markson appeared on Carlson to say she had a “bombshell dossier” that showed some of the world’s foremost intelligence agencies were investigating whether the coronavirus was linked to a lab in Wuhan.
Sky News Australia, which has 1.86m subscribers on YouTube, is still available on Foxtel, Facebook, streaming apps, online at skynews.com.au and on regional free-to-air television where it launched a new channel on Sunday.
Gelber said the limits on free speech were well recognised philosophically and legally.
“It’s something that conservatives once professed to understand,” she said.
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“The reason that a number of countries around the world have developed Covid medical misinformation and disinformation policies is because the wrong information about Covid can cause considerable harm during an international pandemic.
“YouTube is a private organisation, and therefore can and has developed transparent policies regarding harmful content. There is a global outcry over harmful content on social media, to which the social media companies are responding by developing content and community standards.”
Gelber dismissed Sky News claims they were airing legitimate debate.
“We see the airing of different expert views about the appropriate way to approach Covid on our news every single night. This is clearly not that,” she said.
Guardian Australia has found Sky
News recently deleted several videos including Dean in September 2020 stating “the jury is in on hydroxychloroquine – it saves lives” and Jones stating there had been “rank dishonesty” around hydroxychloroquine and Australians were being denied access.
In another removed video published in September 2020, the then Liberal MP Craig Kelly claimed “study after study that shows that hydroxychloroquine, when administered early, can lower the rates of [Covid] infections”.
A video featuring Andrew Bolt speaking to Australian gastroenterologist Prof Thomas Borody about ivermectin use in treating Covid was also taken down.
Guardian Australia sought comment from Sky News and YouTube about the recent deletion of the videos.