COVID-19 Restrictions

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding the government's COVID mud map.

1. How and why did the Transition Committee and then the government settle on the magical date of 23 November to lift some restrictions and conditionally reopen borders that will undoubtedly allow the Delta strain to enter this state and cause community transmission as well as lead to a pandemic of the unvaccinated?

2. Does the minister know the number of senior South Australians who have only received one dose of AstraZeneca so far, including me, and have had to wait three months for their second?

3. Does he concede that this date will lead to a pandemic of the partially vaccinated, meaning tens of thousands of South Australians who have only received one jab are now being placed at serious risk of getting the virus and possibly some of them dying?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:59): Could I urge the honourable member—at the start of his question he used the words 'mud map', and I was disappointed to hear the members of the opposition joining in the act of mockery. This is a very important phase in our pandemic. I would use an aviation analogy, that it is much easier to take off in a plane than it is to land it. There are many serious factors to be considered and one of them will be social cohesion and support for this plan. So if members of this house want to raise seeds of doubt and suggestions that we are about to hasten a pandemic in South Australia, I would urge them to be cautious.

Of course, there will be members of the public who won't have completed their round of vaccination by 23 November, but what I can assure every South Australian is that the bulk of the protective value you get from a COVID-19 vaccine is from the first dose, so every South Australian who steps up and gets vaccinated before 23 November will be in a much better position than those who remain unvaccinated.

In terms of the AstraZeneca time frames, I appreciate that that may well fall on the other side and that is also true of Moderna. My understanding is that Moderna has a four-week gap. So there will be people who will complete their vaccination program after 23 November when they started before 23 November. As I said, the protective value is already having an effect. I also think it's important to stress that every other South Australian who has been vaccinated will help protect those people because we not only reduce the risk of ourselves contracting COVID by taking a vaccine, we also reduce the risk of transmitting the COVID virus to others by getting a COVID vaccine.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo has a supplementary.