Message from the Publisher #028 – Preparing for a Covid normal recovery

Preparing for a Covid normal recovery

It is now clear that the target of Australia become fully vaccinated by end of October will not be met. Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy claimed that by October, all Australians should be able to get protected by having the first shot. The second shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine which can come three months after for some Australians may come by December.

I believe that is still acceptable.

Some European countries including Denmark, Italy and Austria are temporarily suspending the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to reports of blood clotting after injection. However, the regulator European Medicines Agency (EMA) believed that there was no link between blood clotting reports with the vaccine injection and urged that the vaccination program should proceed ahead. The Australian government will continue the implementation of the AstraZeneca vaccination plan.

The federal government was confident that after the local production of the AstraZeneca vaccine starts by end of March, it is still possible for Australia to catch up with its original vaccination schedule.

Even though the vaccination protection of Australia will not become significant at least for a few months, anyway, Australia is now preparing for a Covid normal recovery. The federal government is considering vaccination passports for vaccinated overseas students to come back in the second half of the year. When tourists will be allowed to be back is a question the tourism and hospitality industries be interested to know the answer to. The federal government will start to subsidize domestic travel by providing 1.2 billion to give a 50% discount to 13 destinations. Unfortunately, Victoria is practically missed out by having Avalon as the only destination that can have discounted flights.

We believe that the federal government is wrong in punishing the suffered Victorians by having only supporting one destination in Victoria. More should be done. At least Geelong, Great Ocean Road and other destinations should be considered.

Raymond Chow
Publisher, BlessingCALD