Coronavirus Australia: Scott Morrison says un-vaccinated Aussies may be banned from venues

The time will arrive when Australians fully vaccinated against coronavirus will enjoy more freedoms than their anti-jab counterparts, Scott Morrison has revealed.

The Prime Minister hinted at bringing in restrictions for Australians who refuse to get the vaccine, keeping them out of venues such as pubs and restaurants during a conference call with constituents from the Sutherland Shire on Thursday night.

In audio obtained by Daily Mail Australia, voters from the Cook electorate in Sydney’s south grilled their federal MP on a host of pandemic topics from the country’s bungled vaccine rollout to more support for businesses crippled by a fresh horror wave of the virus in New South Wales.

One fully-vaccinated constituent, ‘Steve’ from Cronulla, said he was frustrated he was in lockdown despite answering the call to get vaccinated many months ago.

He said more Australians would get the jab if support was given to businesses such as cafes, restaurants, pubs and clubs by allowing them to open to fully-vaccinated patrons only.

In a remarkably candid answer, Mr Morrison agreed the proposal should be looked at once more of Australia’s population is vaccinated and the worst of the current NSW outbreak is over.

Only 17 per cent of over 16s have received their two doses so far. 

‘Until the overall vaccine rates are higher than they are now… even with vaccinated people moving around, while vaccinations certainly reduce the risk of you catching Covid and transmitting it, there is still the ability to catch it and pass it on,’ Mr Morrison explained. 

‘When we have such a large unvaccinated population and particularly when we’ve got an outbreak of the Delta variant, and we’re getting increasing evidence to show it’s more probably damaging to people’s health, that could move through the unvaccinated population very quick and could even come from people who are vaccinated.

‘When we get our vaccination levels a lot higher, I agree with you, and I think there should be those advantages to those who have done that and taken the opportunity.

‘Because if you’re vaccinated, you’re less of a public health risk than you are to someone who’s unvaccinated.

‘I think the time will come when exactly what you’re suggesting should be able to be achieved. 

‘But for right now, that and having cafes open and people moving around and doing all that, there’ll be unvaccinated people who will still go. I’d like to say that they won’t, but it will still happen,’ he said.

‘That’s what we’re seeing in many other countries at the moment.’

Mr Morrison reminded everyone that Sydneysiders aren’t the only ones impacted by an outbreak for the Delta variant of Covid, with Singapore also in lockdown until September.

He added Australia had avoided the loss of ‘30,000 lives and more’, based on looking at the fatality rates throughout Europe, UK and the US.

‘As bad as this lockdown is, and it’s bad, this is not just happening in Australia, it’s happening all around the world,’ he said. 

‘If we’d experienced and not been able to suppress the virus as we have been, we shut the borders and made sure we kept the virus out, there would be 30,000 more Australians dead today because of Covid.

‘Australians have done an amazing job to ensure that hasn’t happened and that’s everyone who’s achieved that together by doing the right thing.’

The job for the federal government now is to get everyone vaccinated with Pfizer or AstraZeneca so Australia’s borders can finally be reopened. 

‘About 75 per cent of the population doesn’t have an objection to getting vaccinated,’ Mr Morrison said, referring to government polling.

‘There are some hardcore against any sort of vaccination and there are others we have encourage to do this for themselves, their families, our community and the country.

‘We’ve just got to keep providing those opportunities for people to go and get it.

‘They’re both great vaccines, Please take the opportunity to get them.’  

Earlier in the conference call, Mr Morrison urged aged care workers to get vaccinated and said the country’s state and territory leaders and chief health officers do work together, despite their public spats with one another.

He also provided advice after hearing first hand from families of small business operators affected by the lockdown and the difficulties experienced in getting government support.

Daily vaccinations in Australia reached more than 200,000 doses for the first time this week, while almost 11.8 million jabs have been administered since the rollout began in February.

On July 9, the Prime Minister announced a four stage plan to get Australia back to normal, with each step to be triggered when the vaccination rate hits a certain percentage. 

The percentages required have been calculated by modelling experts at The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and handed to the government.

When setting the target, Mr Morrison will also take into account economic modelling by Treasury on the impact of lockdowns as well as the country’s hospital capacity.

The Grattan Institute think tank released a report on Thursday saying 80 per cent needed to be fully vaccinated before opening up.

‘Abandoning our Zero Covid strategy before 80 per cent of Australians are vaccinated would risk a rapid surge in cases that overwhelms our hospitals and imposes a high death toll,’ the Race to 80 report says. 

Allowing the virus to spread with half the population vaccinated would lead to 31,440 deaths within 300 days, it claims.  

The Institute believes the country can hit the 80 per cent target by December 31 to avoid lockdowns next year. 

States and territory governments may disagree on the percentage required and set their own targets.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said she wants 80 per cent of adults – or 62 per cent of state’s population – to be jabbed before opening up. 

Until the target is reached, short, sharp lockdowns will be implemented by states in response to a handful of cases to snuff out the virus.     

Unvaccinated Aussies could be BANNED from pubs and restaurants just like France and Greece where hospitality venues are full – and there are NO lockdowns like the one crippling Sydney

By Stephen Johnson, economics reporter for Daily Mail Australia 

Unvaccinated Australians could soon be banned from pubs and restaurants like they are in parts of Europe as lockdowns cripple hospitality businesses across Sydney.

France on Monday introduced laws that will from early August require vaccine certificates or a negative Covid test result for anyone entering a public, indoor setting.

Similar rules came into effect in Greece on July 16, stopping anyone being served at indoor restaurants, bars and cafes unless they could prove they had been immunised.

A swathe of European nations including Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, Italy and Spain require proof of vaccination for customers to be served, or are at least planning to.

With Sydney’s lockdowns now extended for yet another for weeks until August 28, restaurant owners have had enough with 24 per cent of them telling Deliveroo’s HospoVitality Index Report they should have the right to know a customer’s vaccination status and be allowed to refuse service during an outbreak.

A majority, or 53 per cent, of the 500 restaurant owners surveyed online Australia-wide were concerned about serving unvaccinated customers.

Ed McManus, the chief executive of ride delivery group Deliveroo Australia, said that once local vaccination rates approached those of Europe, Australia needed to consider in late 2021 the idea of vaccination certificates to be served at restaurants.

‘It is absolutely the right debate to have in Australia,’ he told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday. 

‘As a society, we’ve got to make some choices and trade-offs. In my opinion, that route out of lockdown and route back to the lives we used to lead is dependent on vaccination.

‘Some people in society won’t like this but I’m pro-vaccine, I’m vaccinated: it’s the right thing to do, it’s the patriotic thing to do.

‘It’s not an invasion of your civil liberties to be asked to produce a vaccine passport.’ 

Deliveroo commissioned polling group YouGov to survey restaurant owners before Sydney went into lockdown on June 26, which saw hospitality venues restricted to serving takeaway food.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has extended Sydney’s lockdown for another four weeks until at least August 28 and overnight, a record 239 new cases of the more deadly Indian Delta strain were recorded.

On the other side of the world, in the French city of Bordeaux, patrons on Thursday morning, Australian time, were seen dining at The Charles Dickens pub and bar without wearing any face masks ahead of new vaccination certificate laws coming into effect.

The rules will be expanded from September 30 to cover everyone aged 12 and over.

As part of the French ‘health passes’, those wishing to dine in at a restaurant or pub or visit a cinema or museum, with 50 or more people, need to prove they have either had a Covid vaccination or tested negative to coronavirus.

In France, 52 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, unlike Australia where just 18 per cent of those aged 16 and over had received two doses as of July 28, Department of Health data showed.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce is also in favour of vaccine certificates to board flights.

‘Internationally we absolutely will [require passengers be vaccinated], and that’s becoming a standard around the world,’ he told ABC radio on Thursday.

In Sydney, two million residents in eight local government areas in the city’s west and south-west, are now banned from leaving home for work, unless they work in the health, aged care or emergency services sectors.

The outbreak has reduced vaccine hesitancy, with just 14.6 per cent of people in NSW reluctant to get a jab as of July 23, down from 32.9 per cent at the end of May, a Melbourne Institute survey of 1,200 adults found.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has linked the AstraZeneca vaccine to six, blood clot-related deaths, with the probability of a fatality rate as one in 2.5million.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation in June recommended AstraZeneca for those under 60, which heightened vaccine hesitancy as people of all age groups waited for sufficient Pfizer doses to arrive in September.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on June 28 announced doctors would be legally indemnified if they administered AstraZeneca and a patient had an adverse reaction.

But with Covid case numbers surging, the NSW government this week announced AstraZeneca would be administered at walk-in clinics.

With Australia closed to non-citizens and non-residents until at least 2022, Mr McManus said restaurants were struggling to even recruit baristas and called for a special hospitality visa once immigration resumed.

Before Sydney went into lockdown, the national jobless rate fell to 4.9 per cent for the first time in a decade and job vacancies were at a 12-year high.  

Source: DailyMail AU