I’ll be sticking my arm out for the jab when it’s my turn

Everyone’s carrying on about the Covid-19 vaccine roll out being delayed. Only because the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison promised that four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of this month (March 2021).  And by the end of October this year everyone who wants to have the vaccination will have had the jab. If he hadn’t given a timeline then there’d be none of this nonsense. By the way, when did people start believing what our politicians are telling us?

So how’s it really going?

Not great. On 15^th February the Pfizer vaccine was the first to arrive in Australia.  This vaccine contains multiple doses in each vial and requires a second jab three weeks after the initial dose.   By 12^th March only 135, 000 doses had been administered. Not because we’ve run out of the vaccines. Maybe it’s something to do with more training is needed before further administration of the vaccine. To be fair there has only been one snafu in Australia to date. This occurred when a doctor administered four times the recommended dose of the Pfizer vaccine by mistake to two residents in an aged care facility in Brisbane. But amongst all this there has been some good news. Thousands of heroes of the pandemic such as frontline health workers, quarantine and border workers as well as staff and residents of aged care facilities have had their first jab.

Why the delay?

 “All of Europe is now ravaged by the British variant and by the concern for the increase in infections,” he said. “In coordination with the European institutions, we have decided not to allow the export of these 250,000 doses”. – to Australia.

Some politicians are telling us that the slow rollout is due to supply issues from overseas. But don’t believe it! Australia has now made a batch of the AstraZenica vaccine which is ready to be ‘vialled’. But the fact is some European countries are hoarding the vaccines. And who can blame them? Italy started the trend by blocking a delivery to Australia. This is what the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio had to say about it.

Australia can wait

Let’s be clear peeps.  This is not like hoarding toilet paper. That’s just plain selfish and totally unnecessary. If countries overseas seem to be hoarding their vaccines I say, ‘good on them’. Australia can wait. There are only about ten active cases in the whole of Australia and overall, since the pandemic began, 29,112 infections at the time of writing. Many other countries are still diagnosing more than tens of thousands of new cases every day. It seems to me that there is an urgency for other countries to have a strong, steady roll out of the vaccine without any problems of diminished supply.

Let’s celebrate the vaccines and the scientists who created them

So instead of having a whinge let’s all celebrate the brilliant scientists who have worked tirelessly to develop vaccines to get this pandemic under control.  This has got to be one of the most amazing scientific developments of all time. It’s difficult to imagine how many lives the vaccine will save over time when you consider how many lives this virus has taken already. At the time of writing, the statistics tell us that there are more that 120 million people infected and so far more than 2.65 million people have died.  I suppose space travel is a brilliant scientific achievement too.  But how many lives does going into space save?

Let’s get it done

So I’m still not sure why Australia is in such a rush to get the Covid vaccination.  It just seems to me that many other countries are struggling to contain the virus and now have a situation where it is out-of-control.  But at least they are getting jabs into the arms of their willing citizens. Unlike Australia.  And when my turn finally comes I’ll be sticking my arm with pleasure.