Just to make a contrasting point about your seemingly daily 'they should have taken the vaccine already' rant.
Not sure why you didn't say 'your friend should have had the vaccine already", may be because they're your friend and you understand their circumstance, even though eligible months beforehand.
It would be nice for you to talk about other you don't know with the same care and courtesy and not tar everyone that can't get vaccinated right now with the same brush.
Well when I say my elderly friend has just had the first dose, with the second due in August they must have had the first in May.
I took AZ nearly a week after I became eligible and could have had it sooner if I'd tried harder. One dose provides a decent level of protection from death which is the primary goal of the vaccination program. Two doses reduces that further and is better for other concerns such as secondly protection from serious illness, thirdly limiting transmission and finally where possible ideally protection from getting sick at all.
Everyone in the older cohort has had plenty of time to have at least one dose and should be coming due for the 2nd dose over the next few months and that 2nd dose can be brought forward in places like Sydney where there is high risk. There's no justifiable reason in my view why we shouldn't have a date or specific vaccination target for beginning to relax restrictions (e.g. allowing home quarantine for those returning from low to mid risk countries, if an individual is fully vaccinated) before the end of the year when vaccination rates will be much higher than what they are now. I don't expect everyone here to agree with me on this. Some states trust unvaccinated people who have caught the virus in the community in Australia to quarantine at home, but those who have flown in from overseas, are fully vaccinated, and have tested negative to having the virus are not.
Very few adults have health reasons that mean they shouldn't take AZ. People that shouldn't take AZ e.g. the immunocompromised could get badly affected by illnesses such as the flu as well, but we didn't decide to lock down whole states to protect people from that, but rather expected affected individuals, their friends and family to decide for themselves what steps to take to mitigate the risk, and those running high risk settings to take steps as well. The vaccination rollout is meant to facilitate changing from seeking to eliminate risk to mitigating it. Thankfully we are not seeing the hundreds of deaths in aged care in NSW that were seen in VIC last year because most of the elderly in aged care have chosen to be vaccinated and have been vaccinated.
There are lives being lost because of the impact of the restrictions on people, not just the virus itself. With those most at risk of dying from the virus having had plenty of time to get vaccinated at some point there needs to be consideration of the impacts on mental health and livelihoods when weighing up the way forward, not just physical health risks.
Not giving freedoms back to the vaccinated is working to discourage those that are unvaccinated and in lower risk areas of the country from seeing any rush to get the jab.
