Still in low vaccination rates

Public health experts are warning that poorer suburbs, as well as Aboriginal and multicultural communities, have been left unprepared for the opening of state borders and inevitable COVID-19 outbreaks.

With interstate travel resuming to South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland within days or weeks, many people in disadvantaged areas remain unprotected.

“The gap is actually widening between local government areas where they have a higher rate [of vaccinations] and [those with] lower rates,” said John Glover, the head of the Public Health Information Development Unit at Torrens University.

“Vaccination is taking off in some areas and not in others.

“The difference across the cities is quite stark, and the difference between the city and the regional area in … Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia is quite stark.”

Rates for young Indigenous people also remain low, as do some suburbs with high numbers of migrants.

Community leaders say language barriers, higher rates of insecure and shift work, and social media misinformation are the main reasons that vaccination rates are low.

“Those barriers, those issues [are] really affecting the communities,” Afghan community leader Hussain Rezaiat said.

‘Not as egalitarian as we think’

Professor Duckett said the pandemic had highlighted the seriousness of the problem of social and economic inequality in Australia.

“We pride ourselves in Australia of being an egalitarian society but what COVID revealed was that we’re not as egalitarian as we think,” he said. “Vaccination rates were lower amongst lower-income people, people with lower education, First Nations Australians.

That is especially important as Australia rolls out booster shots for the next phase of the pandemic.

“Because society has been affected unevenly, our response to rebuilding has to be uneven. We have to give more resources to those areas [that] were most affected and most disadvantaged.”

That means that, with the virus waning, vaccination was still only part of the battle.