With the ACT approaching the milestone of two weeks in lockdown, Chief Minister Andrew Barr today flagged restrictions would be eased gradually once in a position to do so.
“We’re going to have a gentle emergence from lockdown, we’re not just going to have a snap back to a complete free for all, “ Mr Barr said.
“There is not a Freedom Day, it’s a gradual easing. “
The Chief Minster said his short-term goal is to manage the outbreak, followed by a medium-term goal to protect the community as vaccination numbers keep growing toward the targets.
“Buying that time for all of those people who are not yet vaccinated to get vaccinated, that’s what this is about, “ he said.
“We owe it to the people who haven’t had the opportunity to get vaccinated, the young people, the kids, to give them that opportunity.
“If you choose not to at the end of all those opportunities then we can’t protect you; all we can have is herd immunity that might protect you at that point. “
Mr Barr’s comments came after Prime Minister Scott Morrison this morning declared lockdowns will be unsustainable once widespread vaccination coverage is achieved.
National Cabinet has set vaccine coverage thresholds of 70 and 80 per cent to reduce the chances of lockdowns and move towards more normal settings, based on modelling by the Doherty Institute.
The PM said the focus would shift to hospitalisation numbers rather than daily cases when immunisation targets were hit.
“Just as we tend to talk about the number of people that die from flu, when we have 80 per cent double dose vaccination that’s how we’ll treat it,” he told reporters.
Australia has fully vaccinated 30 per cent of its population aged 16 and above, while 52 per cent have had one jab.
As of today, 60.2 per cent of the ACT population over 16 has received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 36.8 per cent having received a second.
The ACT’s vaccination numbers across demographics and risk profiles are consistently above national averages.
READ MORE: Vaccine registration open to Canberrans aged 16-29
While in agreeance with the PM on many aspects of the plan, Mr Barr said he wanted to see more effort made to vaccinate children aged 12 to 15.
“I think all Australian governments should make more effort to vaccinate more 12- to 15-year-olds with the TGA approved vaccines once the supply of those is available,” he said. “I would like to see a much higher rate of vaccination amongst that cohort.
“It’s the fine detail of this, and it’s three to six weeks extra vaccinating to protect our kids and to make sure that we are genuinely at 70 or 80 per cent, that’s what’s in dispute.
He also called for more attention to the specific details around the vaccination targets, with focus on the “effective vaccination rate, not nominal rate”.
According to Mr Barr, the vaccine is not immediately effective once it’s jabbed into your arm, given it takes several weeks to reach effectiveness for both the first and second does.
“Targets are not reached on the day of vaccination, it takes time,” he said. “It takes two to three weeks for the vaccines to become effective.”
Mr Morrison said heavy restrictions and lockdowns, which are affecting more than half of Australia’s population across Victoria, NSW and the ACT, could not go on forever.
“It is always darkest before the dawn and I think these lockdowns are demonstration of that,” he said.
“But the dawn is not far away. We should not delay it, we should prepare for it.
“That is our goal – to live with this virus, not to live in fear of it.”
Mr Barr criticised the Prime Minister’s choice of words, saying nobody wants to “embrace more Covid”.
“Embrace more Covid, I don’t think anybody does that, but understanding that there needs to be a transition, of course there does,” he said.
With AAP
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