The Greens say children and teenagers must be urgently included in the government's national vaccine targets and without children and teenagers being included in the plan we will not get out of rolling lockdowns.
"Young people are contracting this deadly virus and they need protection too", Senator Rachel Siewert said.
The Prime Minister's current targets exclude children and most teenagers. The PM's 80% target is really a 65% target of the whole population.
Doherty wasn't asked to model for children and young people below the age of 16.The Government won't give us the brief for the modelling. We need transparency around the advice and modelling the Government is receiving but we are only getting obfuscation. They should be giving close attention to the work done by the Grattan Institute who did model below the age of 16 years.
How is the Prime Minister going to reach 80% vaccination rates without including kids?
Vaccinating parents is important but it will not stop the spread and it will not stop children becoming critically ill.
There are reports that kids and teenagers make up a third of cases in NSW and outbreaks in schools are happening in many states. Over 5000 children and teenagers have contracted the virus since the pandemic began in Australia, with the numbers of children contracting the delta strain growing.
We need a national plan to vaccinate kids and the Greens are calling on the National Cabinet to include children and teenagers in the vaccine targets and rollouts.
