About 10,000 people a day are cancelling or failing to turn up to their Covid-19 vaccination appointments in Victoria, the premier Daniel Andrews says.
This was double the number of daily cancellations from before the federal government announced that young people would be eligible for Pfizer.
Andrews said those who cancel do not give a reason but there were “announcements made last week and within hours we saw people cancelling their bookings”.
“I cannot be any clearer than that,” he said. “I am not even bothering to be critical of that because I cannot change it. People will make judgments. I’m asking them to make a slightly different judgment.”
Andrews urged Victorians to honour their vaccine bookings, saying an appointment for AstraZeneca today is better than the hope of an appointment for Pfizer in several weeks’ time.
“If you’ve got an appointment, please don’t not show up for that appointment or cancel that appointment, because of announcements that have been made and supplies that may be here in a week or a month,” he said.
“There’s no guarantee that you are doing anything other than perhaps joining a waiting list.”
Victoria recorded 71 cases on Monday, including 22 mystery cases – twice as many mystery cases as were reported on Sunday.
Just 16 of the 71 cases were in isolation throughout their entire infectious period.
There are currently 494 active cases in the state, of which 112 are children under the age of 1o and 100 are children aged 10 to 19. One of the 29 people in hospital with Covid is an infant.
Andrews said it was too early to say what the restrictions would look like past 2 September, when the current lockdown rules are due to lift.
Asked if he would consider introducing even tougher rules, he said: “There’s not too many more restrictions that we can put on.”
He said compliance with the current rules, combined with getting vaccinated as soon as you are eligible and getting tested as soon as you have any symptoms, was the only way out of the lockdown.
Andrews also dismissed a suggestion the state could vaccinate its way out of the outbreak, saying “we don’t have the supply and Delta will move faster than we can vaccinate people”.
“I might be upset about that but it doesn’t mean more vaccines turn up because I’m angry that more wasn’t ordered last year or whatever it might be,” he said.
He said that once 80% of the state is vaccinated it was “highly unlikely we would have anything like a statewide lockdown”. Victoria should reach 80% of first doses by mid October on current projections.
But Andrews said he could not rule out localised lockdowns or other statewide restrictions if that was what the chief health officer advised.
“We are not making stone tablets here, mate,” Andrews told reporters. “I can’t rule that out. And it would be wrong if I did, because then you would be here, rightfully, maybe in a few months, saying you said it wouldn’t happen and now it is.”
Fourteen of the cases reported on Monday were linked to the new cluster in Shepparton, which sent Victoria into a statewide lockdown when it was discovered late last week and has already climbed to 36 cases.
Ten were linked to the Newport cluster. Victoria’s Covid response commander, Jeroen Weimar, made a plea for young men in their 20s and 30s to get tested if they have symptoms and to follow orders to isolate if required.
“You might think you’re indestructible but we need you to go out and get tested if you have symptoms,” he said.
Eight were linked to the MyCentre childcare centre in Broadmeadows, which has now had 50 cases. Weimar said that cluster “feels like it’s starting to stabilise”.
And five cases were linked to the outbreak at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, which now stands at 1o.
Among the other cases was a 60-year-old man in Mansfield, who presented to his local hospital with symptoms on the weekend and was taken to the emergency department of Wangaratta base hospital.
The man works in the small community of Bonnie Doon, where a local service station has been listed as an exposure site for 11 days straight, dating back to 9 August. Weimar said the man had been in Shepparton but the case was still under investigation because the timing of his visit did not appear to line up with the onset of symptoms.
None of the new cases have been linked back to the violent anti-lockdown protest on Saturday. Andrews, who condemned the protest as “a mob … intent on having a fight”, urged anyone who attended to get tested “regardless of your political views”.
Weimar said there had been some cases of children being so sick before they had been tested that they were vomiting and collapsing at school.
“And then we go to the household and we realise a number of people in the household are positive, very symptomatic,” he said.
“If you think you have symptoms, if someone you care for has got symptoms, encourage them to get tested.”
