Dunkeld in western Victoria is a long way from the worsening COVID-19 outbreak in south-west Sydney but its residents are anxious to know how the vaccination rollout is progressing in their local community.
Key points:
- The federal government publishes state and territory vaccine rollout data but rates for individual communities are not publicly known
- Health professionals and regional community leaders say it would provide a level of comfort and transparency if the information were released
- There are concerns the data could be counterproductive if published without context
There is "a degree of emotional weariness" about lockdowns, according to Mary-Ann Brown from the Southern Grampians Shire Council.
Cr Brown, who is also chair of rural councils Victoria, says many view vaccination as the way out.
"If there's a reasonably high level of vaccination in communities, it gives people a sense of safety," said Cr Brown.
"But that information is not readily available."
The federal Department of Health publishes daily updates on the vaccination rollout but its geographic data is not broken down beyond states and territories.
Some experts are calling for that to change.
'Transparency breeds trust'
Strategic health policy adviser Bill Bowtell from the University of NSW said COVID-19 vaccination data should be made available by postcode, suburb or region.
He says this allows the public to know "if the promises being made in relation to vaccine distribution are being met".
Professor Bowtell's comments come as the NSW Government redirects doses of Pfizer from rural areas to Year 12 students in parts of Sydney and calls for vaccines in other states to be used to quell the city's outbreak.
He said the government needed to "demonstrate [that need] on the facts and figures".
"If we have the truth we can put the pressure on and make the change that is necessary to allocate the vaccines openly and transparently," Professor Bowtell said.
"In Sydney in a serious crisis – the worst crisis in the history of NSW – these vaccines have to be allocated to where they are most needed.
"But the figures cannot be kept secret."
Risks may outweigh benefits
Research fellow Jessica Kaufman from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute said such localised data could encourage people to get vaccinated and increase uptake rates in some communities.
But she warned the risks of making the data public could outweigh the benefits, especially if the rollout's uneven distribution meant there were areas with very low vaccination rates.
"If you publish that information without all the nuance as to why that is the case, we run the risk of the public, and particularly the media, labelling those areas as being full of anti-vaxxers, which is a really problematic issue," Dr Kaufman said.
A federal health department spokeswoman said officials were looking at "opportunities to provide additional reporting on the vaccine rollout" using data collected within the Australian Immunisation Register.
"Data on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been published according to the format agreed by states and territories and the Commonwealth at National Cabinet," the spokeswoman said.
Data could help advocacy
Dr Kaufman said data likely to be of greater benefit centred on uptake of vaccinations among "broad professional groups", and potentially a metro-versus-regional breakdown.
Rural Doctors Association of Victoria president Rob Phair says that type of information will help his organisation "make sure more disadvantaged Victorians have access to vaccinations".
"I think it would help us as an organisation advocate better for rural areas if we knew where there was less access or where public health units weren't quite reaching out as far as they could," Dr Phair said.
"We can see it's critical that rural Victorians get vaccinated because the super-spreader event at the MCG shows that people [come] from all over country Victoria and they're happy to travel 550km to the MCG.
"Anything we can do to help motivate communities to get vaccinated — almost anything — is going to be a good thing."
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