Message from the Publisher #026 – Report card for the first week

Report card for the first week

The Australian Covid-19 vaccination program has started on 22 February. It was expected that 60,000 Australians would have received the vaccine by end of February. In reality, 33702 people had received the vaccine which was about 53% of the 63140 doses allocated for the first week of the campaign.

On 24 February, an untrained doctor was found giving 4 times the scheduled dosage to two seniors in an aged cared facility in Queensland. On 26 February, it was confirmed that 25 virals (over 120 doses) of unused vaccine had to be disposed of as the aged care facility could not confirm they were stored at the required temperature. A 31 million campaign has started to combat the increasing misinformation emerging around vaccinations. And the Home Affairs Department confirmed that a “myth busting” unit has been established to work with the Health Department to counteract misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine.

The first week of the delivery of the vaccination program was not up to standard.

There was ample time for the federal and state governments to work out the delivery schedule and provided training for the people involved. If we have learned from overseas experience in delivering the vaccination program, we should be better prepared.

CALD leaders have suggested that special consideration to the delivery of the vaccine to the migrant communities should be made as they were groups with little government information and exposed to intense misinformation from various sources. For these communities to gain trust to receive the vaccine, CALD community groups and their leaders should be invited to participate and setting role models.

It is clear that until a majority of Australians have received the vaccine, society will not be going back to normal. The various government authorities should learn from this first week of operation that they should spend greater efforts to listen to opinions rather than following a bureaucratic protocol.

Raymond Chow,  Publisher