Australian Minister of Health Greg Hunt yesterday said the federal government would not “force vaccinations on any Australian” and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has clarified that they would not be compulsory after experts expressed concern that earlier talk of “mandatory” vaccination might drive hesitant Australians away.
Morrison on Tuesday night announced that a letter of intent had been signed with the British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to supply Australians with the University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine if it clears clinical trials.
Asked whether the vaccine — if it is proven safe and effective — would be mandatory, Morrison said he “would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make,” with exemptions on medical grounds.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Later in the day, Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said that the prime minister had made it clear that “we are looking at it being a mandatory vaccine.”
“Look, the prime minister has dealt with that issue this morning and he’s on the record as saying that we will make this as mandatory as possible,” she told 2GB radio. “That basically there will be medical exemptions that will be considered, but the prime minister has made it clear that we are looking at it being a mandatory vaccine,” she said.
The government’s language had concerned leading experts on vaccine hesitancy and refusal, who feared such a discussion was dangerous and could drive some Australians away, given the vaccine was not yet proven effective and safe.
Morrison subsequently told 2GB there was no plan to make the vaccination compulsory.
“It is not going to be compulsory to have the vaccine, OK? It’s not compulsory. There are no compulsory vaccines in Australia,” he said yesterday evening.
“There are no things that force people to do things. What we want to achieve is as much vaccination as we possibly can should the vaccine actually prove successful and get through those trials.”
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS