Living with COVID: Some restrictions will be needed even with high vaccination levels

Researchers from the Burnet Institute have warned some level of COVID-19 restrictions will be required from time to time, even when a high percentage of Australians are vaccinated.

Deputy Director of the Burnet Institute, Professor Margaret Hellard, says there’s no “magic figure” for vaccination, we’ve just got to vaccinate “a whole lot of people”.

Even then, that won’t spell the end of restrictions forever.

“Even when we’ve got really high numbers of people vaccinated, we’re going to still need to occasionally bring in some level of restrictions to stop us from having a nasty outbreak that will cause people to get really sick and die,” Professor Hellard told Ross and Russel.

ROSS: “Will the people who get sick and die be the vaccinated or the unvaccinated?”

PROFESSOR HELLARD: “A bit of both.”

“Deaths can occur in people who are vaccinated, and there’s a whole bunch of people, as well, that we know we can’t vaccinate because they’ve got other health issues.”

Press PLAY below to hear more about what living with COVID-19 will look like