In Melbourne and Sydney right now there are hundreds of unvaccinated people hospitalised with COVID-19. Many are in ICU. Some will die. Some will get long COVID and suffer long-term debility. Others have chosen not to be vaccinated or seek help when sick and have died at home. They are not all elderly.
Statistically you are many, many more times likely to be killed in a motor vehicle accident in Australia than by any vaccine complication – most of which are easily treated now.
As has been described elsewhere, this will be a pandemic of the unvaccinated, which is why most frontline health care workers rushed to get vaccinated as soon as we could. Sadly it is a race, and we did it for ourselves, our loved ones, as well as the community. Our small hospitals will be quickly overrun if our vaccination rates continue to lag – as happened in Shepparton Victoria – from whose experience we can learn. Or we can wait until our loved ones are very unwell, or don’t make it to hospital at all.
A family member sees this on a daily basis at RMH. The COVID ward has expanded four times to take over much of the hospital, and ICU is full. The staff are burning out and patients with other problems have to wait longer to receive attention.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
