State’s youngest Covid victim among 16 deaths – growing concern over kids’ jab rates
Queensland authorities are worried about a slowdown in the number of the state’s children being vaccinated before school returns next week as they revealed a child under 10 was among 16 new deaths from Covid.
Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard looks on during a press conference in Brisbane. Civil libertarians have called for his "draconian powers" to be reined in. AAP Image/Jono Searle)
The state’s Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard expressed sympathy for the parents of the dead child, who he said had a “very serious rare inherited medical condition”.
However, he zeroed in on what appears to be a decline in the vaccination rate of vaccinations for children, saying he hoped parents had not become complacent about the virus.
“The virus is going to be around for months if not years,” he said.
“Over the next few weeks or months it’s inevitable a child is going to be exposed to the virus.”
He said the government estimated that by the end of February, about a third of Queenslanders would have been infected by Covid, but that left two-thirds of the state’s population still vulnerable if they were not fully vaccinated.
The other 15 Covid deaths recorded in Queensland since Tuesday were people over 50, six of whom were unvaccinated. It brings the number of Covid deaths in Queensland since mid-December to 218
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath also expressed concern about jab rates in children, saying it had been slowing down over the past week.
She said that while 89.63 per cent of adults had been double-dosed, the rate stood at just 67.54 per cent for 12-15 year olds.
“This is too low,” she said.
“These kids are going back to school, there is no reason why our children’s vaccination rate should not be at the same rate as adults.”
She urged parents to take up walk-in vaccinations rather than wait for any earlier appointments they had made for their children to get the jab.
Speaking later in Caloundra, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said 35 per cent of children aged 5-11 had been vaccinated but urged the state’s parents to pick up the pace.
“I really would like to see this much higher. Please think carefully about getting your children vaccinated,” she said.
D’Ath said Queensland had recorded 9630 new cases of Covid since Tuesday.
The minister also hit back at Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt’s claims she was indulging in blame-shifting by complaining about the slow Commonwealth rollout of its booster program for aged care residents.
She said the aged care sector was the Commonwealth’s responsibility and “it is up to the Commonwealth to report the data of how many aged care residents have received their booster”.
“It should be publicly reported. If there’s any blame shifting going on here it is the Commonwealth.”
