LAD Asks: Majority Believe Anyone Who Wants A Covid-19 Vaccine Should Get One

Like many places around the world, Australia has been dishing out its coronavirus vaccines to the people who need it the most first.

These include elderly and vulnerable citizens, those on the frontlines in the fight against the pandemic and staff who need to be out in public.

It then slowly goes down in age groups, with young people the last to get the jab.

However, there has been a massive sense of vaccine hesitancy in Australia. There are vaccination hubs that are struggling to fill appointment slots, with large swathes of people holding off getting their vaccine over fears of the AstraZeneca jab and the hope they can get their hands on the Pfizer one later on.

It's a situation that's sparked a big conversation in Australia about whether the government should open the vaccine eligibility to anyone who wants it.

Doing so would boost Australia's vaccination numbers by a decent amount as there are plenty of younger people who would be fighting to be at the front of the line. Until older people get theirs, others can't book their appointments.

Interestingly, the majority of people polled on a LADbible survey believe the Australian government should throw open the proverbial doors of the vaccination system and boost our herd immunity.

After hundreds of votes, 72 per cent of people agree with that idea, and 38 per cent would prefer to keep it step-by-step.

At the moment, Australia ranks 113th in terms of its vaccine rollout and 105th for people who have received one dose. We've fallen behind the likes of Kazakhstan, Cambodia and Seychelles with a rate of 14.88 doses administered per 100 people.

Labor's spokesman for Health, Mark Butler, said in a tweet: "Scott Morrison said we were at the 'front of the queue' but we're so far back we can't even see the front of the queue."

It gets a tiny bit better when looking at the proportion of the population who are fully vaccinated. In that category Australia ranks 84th, which is still pretty terrible for a Western nation and a Prime Minister who promised to have struck deals to ensure we'd get our fair share of vaccines first.

It's also bad as Melbourne is in the midst of its fourth lockdown and there have been revelations about how some aged care workers weren't vaccinated despite working with some of the community's most vulnerable.

The government hasn't signalled that it will open the eligibility to whoever wants the jab but it's clear there's a big appetite for the idea.

The Northern Territory has today (June 7) announced anyone over the age of 16 will be able to book an appointment. This could be a sign of things to come.