THE chance of developing complications from an Astra Zeneca COVID-19 jab is about one in a million. One-in-a-million, that’s pretty unlikely. As one epidemiologist put it, if every day people had a one-in-a-million chance of dying on that day, 999,999 out of one million people would live to be 1,000 years old.
The older you are, the more urgent it is to get vaccinated. This is because like the rest of your body, your immune system is no longer as good as when you were in your twenties. To protect yourself and others around you, you need to get the Astra Zeneca jab.
It doesn’t matter whether you live in a city, a small town or miles away from any urban centre. The Delta variant is extremely transmissible, and it can take just one illegal traveller from greater Sydney to spread it regionally.
There is no shortage of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. Reports suggest that there is a glut, and that it is only fear that is holding people back.
A search (on 16 July 2021) of the Greater Sydney area (Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Illawarra and the Central Coast) using the Vaccine Clinic Finder operated by the Department of Health shows that in the inner western Sydney suburb of Strathfield 86 per cent of clinics offer jabs at short notice. That’s a very high percentage.
On the Central Coast, in the Gosford area only 52 per cent of clinics had jabs available at short notice, much lower than Strathfield.
Similarly in Wollongong, 57 per cent of clinics had jabs available at short notice.
In the Blue Mountains, only a shockingly low 14 per cent of clinics had jabs available at short notice, and all of these were in the Lower Blue Mountains, leaving residents of sizeable towns like Katoomba, Leura, Blackheath and Mount Victoria without access.
We could theorise how this is yet another example of the city getting better treatment than the regions, but maybe there is another explanation:
The further away people in NSW live from Sydney, where COVID-19 infections abound, the less concerned they are of catching COVID and the more likely they are to give in to their fear of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. Recently, people in Sydney readily overcame their fear when the Delta variant took off and they demanded access to vaccines. Needless to say, this is demand which medical clinics are happy to meet.
In areas of Greater Sydney where there are no infections, more people have a false sense of security. This causes them to give in to their fear of Astra Zeneca against their better judgment. As a result, less people demand access and medical clinics are reticent to overstock Astra Zeneca.
The moral of this story: get yourself booked in for the Astra Zeneca jab wherever you live. There may be no or few infections in your area now but, as we have recently seen, this can change at any moment. Be safe!
