The vaccination goal that’s Australia’s ‘best chance’ of reopening safely

At least 80 per cent of Australia’s population need to get vaccinated for the country to have our “best chance of being able to reopen safely and move beyond lockdowns and border closures”, new modelling from the Grattan Institute reveals.

Economic policy program director at the Grattan Institute, Brendan Coates, says that figure will need to be higher — 95 per cent — among over 70s.

“If you have even a small share of over 70s being unvaccinated the risk of people dying from COVID is quite high in that age group,” he told Neil Mitchell.

Mr Coates thinks we can reach the targets by the end of the year, but it’s “a big ask”.

“There’s only about 10 per cent of the population that we’d describe as being pretty stridently anti-vaccine,” he said.

Mr Coates welcomed measures like vaccine lotteries and passports, which he says will help Australia to reach vaccination targets.

Press PLAY below to hear more about what needs to happen for Australia to reopen safely