I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about this point. I addressed this question on Friday.
I understand that the Victorian premier addressed it today. The premier in New South Wales is not referring to moving to phase B at 50% vaccinations. She is not suggesting that. She is not aiming to do that.
The vaccination rate to get to phase B, which the New South Wales government is a supporter of, is 70% and then 80% for phase C.
The whole country on average has to get to 70% and then that state itself has to get into 70%. What the premier is referring to is how New South Wales might seek to manage their suppression phase measures of restrictions in that phase. That is what she is referring to.
So I think these two issues have been at cross purposes and hopefully that clarifies it very clearly that the premier is not going in another direction to the national plan … All states and territories have affirmed their strong agreement to the national plan on Friday and those vaccination targets for moving to phase B and phase C.
This is about the management of the lockdown in New South Wales and what steps they may take in managing that lockdown while they remain in the suppression phase, but the important point is this – the lower the case numbers are, when we go into phase B, the better. Not just for the nation’s health, but for the nation’s economy as well.
As Prof Skerritt noted, in countries that do have above 70% vaccination rates, they are still seeing deaths, in the United Kingdom, that we would hope never to see in Australia at those levels.
So, it is very important that the suppression phase continues to work effectively as we are seeing it do right across the country, but there is a very big challenge as we have seen in New South Wales in arresting the growth in those case numbers and it remains the goal, it remains the task, to suppress those case numbers down. So when ultimately we can get to 70%, which we hope to achieve this year and based on the vaccination rates we are achieving the maths backs that up, then we would be able to go into that phase in a much stronger position because this is the difference between Australia and the rest of the world.
The rest of the world has not seen the very low fatality rates that we have seen in this country. They have not seen the economic recovery by and large that we have seen in this country. They have not seen the very low case numbers. So we’re going for low case numbers. We’re going for low fatality rates. And we’re going for a vaccinated country. And on top of that, a strong economy.
