Sweet, sweet dreams and vaccination nightmares.

Remember this?

Back in December, unlike other well-heeled countries such as the UK and USA, Australia was not in the grip of a health emergency courtesy of Covid-19. The argument then was that there was no need for our vaccination rollout to be driven by a sense of urgency. This was the view of the Australian Government. By and large most of us seemed to have accepted this logic, although I doubt many of us really embraced it – particularly the bit about there not being any urgency to getting the vaccination job done.

Picture this.

Five months later, these same comparable countries – the UK and the US - are in a far better place because of their humanitarian / urgent response to Covid-19. In the US, more than 60 per cent of adults have received their first jab and about 40 per cent have received their second. Every adult is now eligible for the jab and the plan is that come July, more than half of the adult population will have been fully vaccinated. Not bad given the chaotic state of affairs when Donald Trump was tumbled out of office in January. In the UK, more than 70 per cent of the adult population has had the first jab. The plan is to offer all adults the first jab by July. Sales of sunscreen are up in both countries as the exhausted citizens contemplate travel to exotic lands beyond their respective borders. International borders are open and travel, albeit to a miniscule number of countries, is allowed.

Back in fortress Australia – the country with no health emergency - we have only managed to give around 3 million jabs by mid May, with less than 5 per cent of adults being fully vaccinated. Not only have the vaccination programmes helped the US and UK overcome their respective Covid-19 crises but it has positioned them to be better able to control and hopefully ward of future threats.

Now, picture this.

So, while the punters in the US will celebrate their Independence Day in July, and while the punters in the UK will be celebrating their summer, back home in Australia we will be relying on last year’s strategy to work again this year. We will still be living like it was 2020!

There is irony in all this of course. Both the US and the UK mismanaged their Covid-19 response whereas Australia did exceptionally well. Now the situation is reversed. We have well and truly mismanaged our vaccination rollout, whereas the US and the UK are doing remarkably well.

We are no more protected now then we were last year. Once again, it would appear that Australia’s total intellectual output and problem-solving prowess in terms of the health aspects of Covid-19 amounts to no more than the ability to lock the doors!