Covid 19 coronavirus: Confessions of a vaccination queue jumper who won't say sorry

Sign outside a Covid vaccination centre in Queensland. Photo / NCA

Before Scott Morrison announced Australians under 40 were eligible to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, a journalist in his late 20s — who isn't a health worker and didn't fall into any of the eligible categories outlined by the Australian federal government — shouldn't have been vaccinated.

But this guy jumped the queue.

Technically, it was all above board. Australian athletes and officials heading to Tokyo for the Olympics were granted exemptions to get the jab before boarding their flights — and so too were members of the media also making the trip.

So while state premiers blamed federal leaders for what many agree has been a botched vaccine rollout beset by supply issues and mixed messages, a select group of young, healthy Aussies was rolling up their sleeves — literally.

Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine and syringes at a vaccination site ready for a day of vaccinations. Photo / Bloomberg

And we were getting the good stuff: Pfizer. You know, the one Queensland said it was close to running out of unless the Commonwealth gave it a supply boost.

So while under-40s are checking in with their GPs about the risk of blood-clotting if they get the AstraZeneca jab, reporters like this one are already sitting pretty before their rule-abiding peers even had a chance to experience how rough life can get the day after your second dose of Pfizer.

At first, there was a slight sense of guilt about being given priority in the vaccination queue. Do the healthiest physical specimens among us — elite athletes — really need to be protected first? And do the journalists — choosing to fly to Tokyo in full knowledge of the risks — who merely talk and write about subjects doing far more impressive things than they, deserve to be at the front of the line too?

The answer this selfish scribe has come to, after a period of reflection, is yes. I'm a Covid-19 vaccination queue jumper and I don't care one bit.

We keep hearing the road out of this coronavirus straitjacket is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible. Australia did a bloody good job containing the virus and shielding the economy from its effects, compared to so many other countries, but keeps falling over when trying to take the next steps.

An Endorsed Emergency Nurse, conducts a Covid-19 swab test at a Covid testing clinic in Sydney. Photo / Getty Images

The sooner we want to travel across state lines, the sooner we want to take that overseas holiday, the sooner we want to stop yelling about the terrible internet connection in our makeshift home office, the sooner we all need to get vaccinated.

By jumping the queue, I'm one less vaccinated person the rest of the country needs to worry about. Well, not including select partners of NRL players, of course.

I'm lucky I didn't have to weigh up the (admittedly very small) risk of whether to get a vaccine that has the possibility to cause blood clotting, so my act is far from noble, and not nearly as virtuous as those milennials lining up to accept AstraZeneca.

Plenty of people yet to receive their dose will see it as selfish, and that's fine. Maybe even those who've been jabbed themselves will be dirty, and that's fair enough too.

I was offered the best vaccine available, and took it. If I didn't, I couldn't go to Tokyo — so as a sports writer it was a no-brainer.

The initial guilt quickly made way for the realisation my selfishness was actually helping the country. Who cares how you get it, the more people that are protected against coronavirus, the better, because it benefits all of Australia.

The resources devoted to Australia's Tokyo-bound citizens are not going to dramatically improve our vaccine rollout effort if they are diverted away from the Olympics. Even if Olympians and the media weren't being given favourable treatment, we would still be complaining about the snail's pace at which jabs are being administered.

Having experienced it first-hand, the Olympics operation is impressive but ultimately still on a small scale. Telling our athletes and journos to take a hike and get in line won't speed up how quickly that line moves. In essence, not putting vaccines in their arms won't mean Pfizer necessarily gets injected into anyone else's at a more rapid rate.

So if we have the chance to get more people vaccinated, and get us that one inch closer to normality, why not take it?

Self-indulgent sports reporters aren't the only ones getting ahead. Plenty of under-40s have been vaccinated with Pfizer by a variety of (perfectly legal) means, which you can read about here. And they shouldn't be condemned either.

As health ethics expert at the Sydney School of Public Health, Diego S. Silva, wrote in a piece for The Conversation: "Unless people who are eligible and want to receive the Pfizer vaccine are being denied access — and I haven't heard this is happening, at least not because of queue jumping — then the default should be to vaccinate as many Australians as possible, as quickly as possible.

Australian Swimmer Cate Campbell has received her jabs before going to Tokyo. Photo / NCA

"We know individuals won't be as safe as they could be until a large proportion of the population is vaccinated. We also know our vaccine rollout is well behind schedule.

"So if anything, we should be thanking younger Australians for doing their part to accelerate the Covid-19 vaccination rates in this country."

You're welcome, Australia. Now where do collect my medal? Is it at the same place I received my vaccine?