lovetravellingoz
Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2006
- Posts
- 12,704
This article in the Guardian quotes a recent Essential Poll that observed significant growth in vaccine hesitancy in the over 50 cohort.
Essential poll: fewer than 50% of over-50s willing to get AstraZeneca vaccine
Rise in vaccine hesitancy threatening to derail government’s already troubled rolloutwww.theguardian.com
There is also significant hesitancy in younger age groups too, and in both cases, the level of hesitancy is increasing.
In my opinion, this is what happens when there is little perceived benefit to taking the vaccine, which in turn makes the even tiny risks (of clots and of unknown long term effects) not worth taking. People are not stupid. They have by and large assessed that individual risk of getting COVID in Australia is tiny, so therefore the benefit of avoiding COVID is not very compelling. Further, the only/major source of COVID in the community now is escapes from HQ. The federal Government is reacting to that by stopping flights from high risk countries and banning most people from leaving the country. The state Governments are reacting by having very restrictive caps for HQ, and slamming the borders shut every time there is a single case. No politician (except St Gladys) is linking vaccination to even the possibility of being allowed to travel or being exempted from lockdowns and border closures. So as there is an all but zero likelihood of getting COVID in these circumstances, it's probably not unreasonable for people to feel that their personal risk equation does not warrant taking even the very tiny risks of vaccination.
It's a stalemate, and the governments collectively need to "go first" and give people a glimpse of what they will miss out on if they don't get vaccinated to get things moving again and overcome vaccine hesitancy. People just need some sort of sweetener (or even carrot and stick) to get them motivated again.
I am 100% not an anit-vaxxer, and I was very willing to get the shots, but now, not so much. However, my friend's son, who lives in the UK and will be fully immunised, looks like coming back in October for a family occasion, and she has asked me to get vaccinated so that I am not at risk from contact with them both. Also, my first interstate client has enquired for work from September, after cancelling last year's entire program. These two events make me lean more towards getting the shot when I am eligible (2A), because they change my personal risk assessment. However, if I am immunised but still get caught up in a lockdown on the interstate work travel, I will be furious, as the extra accommodation costs will consume my profit from the work and therefore the whole trip would be financially unviable. These are the sorts of things the government(s) could be doing a lot more to address.
Most on AFF are different from the public at large who generally support lockdowns, and who also probably do not view the vaccine as that important at present.
My perception from the general non frequent travellers that I interact with is that ones more keen on getting vaccinated tend to be people who are fearful of CV19, and at present the fearful are becoming less and less.
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