Pressure on Palaszczuk to open up
THE Palaszczuk government is under pressure to commit to reopening with the rest of the country once 80 per cent of over-16s are fully vaccinated, regardless of case numbers, after the Doherty Institute reiterated to national cabinet it would be safe to do so.
The confirmation comes as almost 300,000 Queensland teenagers will be eligible to get the Pfizer Covid-19 jab from mid-September, with schoolbased vaccine programs now in the works.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation on Friday approved the broad use of the Pfizer jab in children aged 12-15, with authorities still working on ticking off use of the Moderna vaccine on children.
Children in the cohort will be able to book in for their jab from September 13, just as Australia’s stock of vaccines is set to increase from October.
After a week of back and forth between the federal government and the states and territories over the vaccination levels required to banish lockdowns, national cabinet was given another briefing from Doherty Professor Jodie McVernon on the institute’s draft modelling scenarios.
But national cabinet was also told that some public measures such as mask wearing, contact tracing and localised “moderate restrictions” would still be necessary at between 70 and 80 per cent of vaccination coverage.
To allay concerns by some states that health systems around the country will struggle to handle the increase in case numbers once the country moves away from the current heavy suppression and elimination models, the nation’s leaders have agreed to establish a taskforce to look at hospital preparedness.
The taskforce, to be led by Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy, will report back to national cabinet next week on how to make sure Australia has enough intensive care beds and ventilators when the coronavirus begins to circulate around the country without lockdowns.
It will also look at ways in which states can help each other to support their health and hospital systems when that time arrives.
Sources familiar with the meeting said Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews backed the Doherty modelling in his comments to the national cabinet meeting.
But WA Premier Mark McGowan, who has expressed unhappiness at the Doherty plan, gave no guarantee in the meeting that he would adhere to the plan.
Speaking afterwards in Perth, where he was announcing that two infected truck drivers from NSW had entered the state, Mr McGowan hedged his bets.
“If there’s thousands of cases out there and those cases have been seeded into, if you like, into a jurisdiction without Covid, then obviously the risk is much higher,” he said.
“That’s the problem that jurisdictions without Covid face – and I raised that point today – the idea that we just deliberately infect our citizens when we have no Covid when we get to 70 per cent vaccination, I just can’t do that because people will die.”
Vaccine rollout lead Lieutenant General John Frewen confirmed schoolbased vaccine programs were in the works, with the federal government to work with states and territories and with the private school system.
“You will see those programs taking shape over the next month or so,” he said.
During Queensland’s most recent Delta-strain Covid-19 cluster, more than 90 children aged 19 or younger were among those infected.
Infectious disease expert Paul Griffin said there was also emerging evidence that children could suffer from “long Covid”, which includes ongoing fatigue, “brain fog” and respiratory issues.