Shop workers, tourist guides and barbers are among dozens of groups who must get COVID-19 shots to work in Australia's Northern Territory, officials announced Wednesday, unveiling one of the world's most far-reaching vaccine mandates.
Expressing concern at low coronavirus jab rates in some communities, the Territory's chief minister Michael Gunner announced "anyone serving the public at work will have to be vaccinated".
The vast Northern Territory stretches from tropical Darwin on the Timor Sea to the dusty outback settlements of Alice Springs and Uluru -- an area three times the size of Spain.
It is home to a large number of Aboriginal and other vulnerable remote communities.
Although more than 80 percent of the region's adult population has received at least one dose, Gunner said there were "patches of concern" and communities where people are hesitant or refusing the vaccine.
"I am making sure we do everything possible to get everyone vaccinated," Gunner said. "You can't hold people down and stick a needle in their arm. It is their choice and some are choosing against it."
By Christmas Eve, anyone working with the public must be fully vaccinated or face a A$5,000 (U.S.$3,700) fine and instant dismissal.
"You work in hospitality -- you need to get the jab. Retail or a supermarket -- you need to get the jab. If you are behind the counter at a bank or receptionist, you need to get the jab," said Gunner. "A barber, hairdresser beauty therapist ... you need to get the jab. If you are a frontline worker in the economy, that means you must be vaccinated."
In other parts of Australia, COVID-19 vaccines have been made mandatory for healthcare workers and teachers.
Indonesia's capital has announced fines for refusing a vaccine and Fiji has a policy of "no jab, no job" for all government workers.
And around the world, the unvaccinated are now routinely barred from indoor or crowded venues.
But the Northern Territory's rules go further than most democracies.
The Territory has seen just 214 cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began and zero deaths, but officials admit that run will not last.
"One day, perhaps one day soon, it will be here and it will stay here. We're going to have to live with it," Gunner said. "If you don't get vaccinated, there's a much, much higher chance that you will die."
© 2021 AFP
31 Comments
2020hindsights
Good move. If you are working with the public, you have a responsibility not to put them at risk by not being vaccinated.
Blacklabel
you can still get and transmit COVID while vaccinated.
You can also be unvaccinated and not have COVID.
as vaccination status has no relationship with COVID status....- Isnt there something else that would not put the public "at risk"?
xamurai
Whatever you do, whatever your choices are... IF YOU GET IT, YOU GET IT! But we have to feed first the big pharma companies with our money...
Blacklabel
It’s less risky to have an unvaccinated nurse or doctor or staff than to have none at all when I show up to the emergency room.
there a finite number of qualified people to do these jobs and each person fired has an impact.
look at all the airline flights being cancelled every day, they can do that to pretend no impact (the weather!) but a hospital can’t cancel me to come emergency room.
unvaccinated medical person or no person at all. That’s obvious what the choice is.
Vreth
@Blacklabel
Why would you want to be taken care of by a nurse or doctor that doesn't believe in science? Like taking your car to get fixed at a dry cleaner.
Alex
Great News
Jimizo
Making the less employable unemployable?
A bit cruel but we can’t keep mollycoddling them.
theResident
More good news in our quest for normality.
Sven Asai
Yes, it all converges in a dictatorship. You can say something against Kim in NK , but only one time and are shot or banned to prisons and hard farm or construction work. And here, you are completely free to chose vaccinations or not, but if you deny, you are fined, jobless, economically dead. The differences are becoming very small, don’t they?
Blacklabel
simple. because that is not what the choice to not get vaccinated actually means.
its just a binary, unserious, liberal talking point. No one is saying take your car to the dry cleaner either.
Neither is a representation of what is being thought or said.
Blacklabel
I think liberals have forgotten that people who dont have COVID use hospitals too.
lets say Im unvaccinated. A person comes with COVID, Im not a threat to give them COVID.
Because one, I dont have it and two, they already have COVID when they show up.
Lets say Im unvaccinated a person comes without COVID. They are vaccinated and masked. I am masked, as its a hospital. Their vaccination protects them at 95% and our masks are said to "work" as well.
Whats the problem here?
prionking
False equivalence. These two viruses are light years apart when it comes to an existential threat.
zichi
A strike for common sense.
Blacklabel
and lastly- liberals propose unvaccinated lose their jobs and are not eligible for unemployment as a punishment for non compliance.
umm...what happens to these people? and their families and their children?
Liberals, the "empathetic" bunch, dont really have an empathetic answer here that I have heard.
Let them all die as punishment for daring to not comply?
Same people who get all upset when an armed criminal who doesnt comply with police gets shot. The actions of that criminal could cause the policeman to die. same as liberals claim about unvaccinated people.
Yet for that criminal after shot: That person had rights! there had to be another way! that wasnt "right"
Empathy is strangely absent in this COVID-19 narrative.
P. Smith
BlacklabelToday 02:54 pm JST
Let’s be clear about one thing: you are not being punished for choosing to deny science and not get vaccinated, you are being forced to live with the consequences of your choice.
Don’t like your employers rules? Get another job.
Can’t feed yourself or your family? Think more deeply about the consequences of your actions.
It’s beyond hilarious how the COVID vaccines have caused “conservatives” to further abandon their claims to value taking responsibility for themselves.
Notice how the “conservatives” on these threads always blame liberal for everything? That’s the epitome of taking responsibility for your own actions.
P. Smith
Another odd aspect of COVID is that “conservatives” suddenly worried about others and want to invoke big government to prevent science from getting us out of this pandemic.
Northernlife
Vaccinations do not mean immunity why do so many people think they do...
Express sister
Get a job in a supermarket. Go pick vegetables and fruit in the field. Become a cleaner.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Raw Beer
And you still think vaccines help protect others? They might have a small effect for a couple of months but....
zichi
65% fully vaccinated and 70% by the end of October. But out of the population of 250,000, about 150,000 live in the capital Darwin.
The state is massive so reaching all people is very difficult. 1.42 million km². Less than 1 person per sq km.
virusrex
Because they do, in the medical sense of the word.
The scientific and medical consensus of the world say so, they do help protecting others even if people without any evidence choose to ignore the science.
Larr Flint
Seems like a labour shortage is coming soon to Australia.
wtfjapan
you can still get and transmit COVID while vaccinated. You can also be unvaccinated and not have COVID.
which everybody know, once again for those a bit slow on the pandemic
being vaccinated reduces your chances considerably of infection , hospitalisation and death. FACT
by being vaccinated it reduces the chances of hospital being inundated with covid patients, gives people that requiring life saving medical treatment, car accident , heart attacks, cancer treatment access to beds when they need them.
There 2 ways out of a pandemic natural immunity or vaccine immunity both require herd immunity over 80% of the population to reach this. Its worked for Polio、 Smallpox Tetanus Rubella etc etc
Worldwide fatality rate of unvaccinated is around 2%, while vaccinated is about 600 times less.
BigYen
Australia has a strong commitment to immigration and has long been a favoured destination for overseas workers looking for a working holiday. There will be no shortage of vaccinated skilled workers from overseas willing to work anywhere in the country. Plus once unvaccinated locals realise that governments in Australia and worldwide are serious about requiring vaccinations in order to work in certain employment categories, watch the vaccine resistance fade away and the vaccination rates take off dramatically. It’s only common sense, and it’s about time for pointless resisters to display some of it.
wtfjapan
Vaccinations do not mean immunity why do so many people think they do...
who does?
once again for those a bit slow
being vaccinated reduces your chances considerably of infection , hospitalisation and death. FACT
comparing infections of unvaccinated to vaccinated then then yes immunity (while not 100%) is far far higher.
vaccines have almost eradicated Polio、 Smallpox Tetanus Rubella etc etc over the last 100yrs.
We have a new virus & vaccines and suddenly some people think their personal opinions supersede the science, even when the science show their opinion are wrong
2020hindsights
Blacklabel
But you are 1/5th less likely to get it, so 1/5 less likely to transmit the virus. Being vaccinated is something that a worker can do to keep the people they meet safe. Not getting vaccinated is negligent. If they are vaccinated and then get the virus, that is not negligent.
2020hindsights
Larr Flint
I doubt it. Like the US, when there are mandates the vast majority comply.
rainman1
But..What @Raw Beer. Please enlighten us.
P. Smith
2020hindsightsToday 04:30 pm JST
This has been explained ad nauseum to the anti-vaxx crowd here.
2020hindsights
Raw Beer
No. They have a large effect. By current estimates, 5 times less infectious.
wtfjapan
Liberals, the "empathetic" bunch, dont really have an empathetic answer here that I have heard.
oh please , maybe your should direct your question to TX FL conservative leaders which have all but given up on the pandemic, they now have some of the highest infection rates in the US , theyve even surpassed CA NY with higher population density , all this with a vaccine available
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109004/coronavirus-covid19-cases-rate-us-americans-by-state/