Scott Morrison wants 95% uptake of vaccine; New Zealand bolsters quarantine with 500 military personnel; South Korea in record daily rise
Australia’s prime minister has hurriedly backtracked after announcing he would make a potential Covid-19 vaccine “mandatory”, saying instead it would be
“encouraged”.
With governments around the world anticipating resistance to compulsory inoculation from anti-vaxx groups and a sceptical public, Scott Morrison said on Wednesday morning in Sydney the aim was to get 95% of the population to have the jab and that he was “expecting” that it would be compulsory except on medical grounds.
“I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make,” Morrison said in a radio interview. “We’re talking about a pandemic that has destroyed the global economy and taken the lives of hundreds of thousands all around the world, and over 430 Australians. So, you know, we need the most extensive and comprehensive response to this to get [...]
Who are The Guardian? The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to
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What is Coronavirus? Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that are typically mild, such as the common cold, though rarer forms such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 can be lethal. Symptoms vary in other species: in chickens
they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.
What is Australia? Australia, officially known as the Commonwealth of Australia. It is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. Australia is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The
population of 26 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.
What is Vaccine? A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface
proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and to further recognize and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may encounter in the future. The administration of vaccines is called vaccination. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the restriction of diseases such as polio, measles, and tetanus from much of the world.