On Friday, Australia hit the important milestone of having 90% of the adult population (aged 16 years or over) partially vaccinated, with 83.0% fully vaccinated:
This has taken Australia to 16th among OECD nations for vaccinations, with Australia on track to become one of the highest vaccinated countries in the world.
This is a remarkable result given Australia’s slow vaccine rollout. And it has given Australians – especially those living in NSW, Victoria and the ACT – optimism that the pandemic will be in the rearview mirror in 2022.
However, Professor Dale Fisher, an Australian infectious diseases expert, warns that Australians should curb their enthusiasm given the virus outbreak currently happening in Singapore:
“I think you will get a bit of a honeymoon [in summer], because people open the doors, windows, go outside for picnics. So obviously, that’s much safer,” says Professor Fisher, who is based at Singapore’s National University Hospital.
“My concern, in Australia, would be more about March – April, as you’re going back into winter. [It’s] probably going to be a good flu season as well.”
Professor Fisher presents Singapore as a prime example of how Australia could struggle to remain virus-free for very long.
With one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, Singapore, like Australia, had planned for a phased reopening once 80 per cent of the population were fully dosed.
Instead, it has faced its steepest curve of infections and deaths so far, with daily case numbers rising from double digits in August to more than 5,000 a fortnight ago.
Average daily infections since September have hovered above 3,000, and the total death toll is more than 550, most of them from the past three months.
Last week, Singapore recorded its highest weekly death toll, with 17 deaths on Sunday and a seven-day average of about 13…
Hospitals remain overloaded and restrictions had to be reintroduced.
Singapore – a nation of only 5.9 million people (i.e. around 15% larger than Sydney) – is the most highly vaccinated country in the world with 86% of its total population fully vaccinated (versus 69% in Australia):
Despite its leading vaccination status, Singapore has just experienced its biggest COVID outbreak whereby 7-day average cases topped 3,750, which is 1,000 more than Australia’s peak:
On a population-adjusted basis the explosion in cases across Singapore is even more stark:
Singapore’s COVID deaths have also risen sharply and dwarf Australia’s when adjusted for population size:
The situation in Singapore is bonafide proof that vaccination only mitigates COVID risks and does not eliminate them.
With Australia’s government’s hell bent on rebooting immigration and international student arrivals to pre-COVID levels, and the NSW Government abolishing the need for international arrivals to quarantine, it seems inevitable that new strains of COVID will be imported into Australia, resulting in future outbreaks and restrictions.
After a benign summer, Australians should prepare for another wave of COVID outbreaks in the lead up to next winter. The shock will be biggest for the COVID-free jurisdictions of Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia Northern Territory and Tasmania.
