Australians have every right to be very concerned about the Prime Minister's cancellation of the vaccine rollout timetable.
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Scott Morrison has abandoned plans to give all Australians their first vaccine dose by the end of October.
With the medical experts now recommending people under the age of 50 get the Pfizer vaccine instead of AstraZeneca due to blood clotting concerns, that aspirational target has now been torched.
The vaccine rollout is now in turmoil and while experts like Jane Halton from the National COVID-19 Commission are calling for calm, there is reason to be concerned.
Our current status with the virus should not be used as a security blanket.
What we have seen globally is countries experiencing rises in cases leading into colder winter months.
As recently as last week, the Murdoch Press carried a story relating to "forecasts by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington predict cases in Australia will increase from around zero to more than 2800 a day by the start of July".
"These IHME forecasts are some of the best you can get," Dr Benjamin Ryan, an Australian and public health expert at Baylor University, Texas told The Australian.
"I don't know how Australia gets out of this situation without a surge in cases at some point; the evidence is increasingly that at some point you have to reach herd immunity," he said.
At the current rates nationally, the rollout of the vaccine could take up to two years.
We know that rate will improve. Or at least we hope it does. It has to improve.
"The trick now is for people just to calm down a little bit and get back to basics," Jane Halton told the nation on Monday.
We could all feel a little bit more comfortable if we felt there was an adequate sense of urgency and competency around what is the most critical issue confronting our community at this point in time.
Until then, now is as good a time as any to ensure we are exercising adequate precautions in protecting ourselves and each other.
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