Around this time a year ago, the main question circulating the topic of vaccinations was, how soon can we get it? Fast forward a year, and a new question has sprouted in the public domain; will people get it?
In early March, when Australia began its vaccination rollout, the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was spoken of as our vile-sized ticket to normality- the warhorse that would carry Australia in its efforts to vaccinate the whole county.
“As the days went on, I started getting really concerned about the blood clot just because my arm was still really sore and swollen, and I had poor circulation in the hand. I remember thinking if this is a blood clot I’m doomed.”
The health concerns shared by 21-year-old medical receptionist, John Verghese, stem from news breaking of very rare, but very serious blood clotting incidences linked to the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. A statistically minuscule medical complication, with enormous implications for public confidence.
John’s not alone in his rattled feelings towards COVID-19 vaccinations. A survey of 1090 people ran between 21-26 April, found that the proportion of people who would be willing to get vaccinated as soon as possible dropped from 47% to 42% in the space of a month. One in six people (16%) said that they would never get vaccinated against COVID-19, up from 12% last month. Just 43% of Australians think the rollout is being done efficiently, down from 68% in March
“Prior to these problems, I think we would have said the vaccine would have gone quite well, because public confidence was pretty high willingness to take the vaccine, at least, comparatively, was much higher in Australia,” said Associate Professor Aaron Martin, who ran a survey gauging public attitudes towards COVID-19 policies in late February.
Professor Martin explained that high levels of media coverage and public interest make in the global COVID-19 vaccine rollout a piece of public policy like no other.
“Every single blood clotting death is on the front page of every single newspaper for a week. And that is just not the case with other routine complications in medical practice,” said Prof. Martin.
“We just don’t usually roll out government programs on this scale, so that means things that wouldn’t show up or wouldn’t be paid attention to are just magnified, because just because of the sheer scale.”
The global tendency to constantly look over our shoulders, a requisite when to a gloabal pandemic, means we are constantly comparing our situation to the next.
“I think it’s quite interesting that the countries that did the worst, like primarily the UK and the US, are actually doing the best in terms of vaccine rollout. I think what they’re doing is quite extraordinary, just the rates they’re vaccinating people.
Vaccine hesitancy is not only a reflection of AstraZeneca’s fall from grace, the on the public confidence in the government behind the vaccination program.
Prof. Martin describes the Morrison Government’s management of the rollout as ‘disappointing’, specifically the Prime Ministers’ tendency to blame others for problems, such as the states for unmet vaccination targets.
“I think that what is he has done again, in terms of saying, well, it’s the state’s fault, is extremely unfair. I think that the federal government has to take responsibility for the plan they put in place.”
An interesting consequence of vaccine rollouts, globally, is their ability to distract from how countries originally handled their COVID-19 breakouts.
“Let’s look at the Johnson government in the UK. Will the public forgive the government for the various kind of problems that they had when dealing with the virus? And then the opposite may be true here where people forget about the actual management of the virus and concentrate primarily on the failure of the vaccine role out,” said Prof. Martin.
(Featured Image: Stacks of viles containing COVD-19 vaccines PHOTO CRED: Mat Napo)
