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ScoMo Reckons His Rollout Is Now A “Gold Medal Run” Even Though It Was Famously “Not A Race”

"Anyone else feel like Australia is a huge inconvenience to Scott Morrison?"

by Edwina Storie  28 July 2021
scott morrison vaccine photo

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After saying several times earlier in the year that the vaccine rollout is “not a race,” today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced it was most definitely a race. In fact, he said it’s a “gold medal run.”

“All of Australia, like our Olympians, we go for gold on getting those vaccination rates where we need to go,” he told reporters in today’s press conference. “Because the are supplies is there, the distribution is there, pharmacists, GPs, clinics, and we make a gold medal run all the way to the end of this year. And the sooner we get there, the sooner we get there,” he said.

“I know every Australian has that Olympian spirit in them, and I have great confidence that we will beat this, Australia.”

The speech came a few hours after NSW announced it would commence another four weeks in lockdown, after several daily cases that had stubbornly continued to rise, despite the previous four weeks stay-at-home order.

Morrison said in the speech that lockdowns will become “a thing of the past” by Christmas, as “everybody who has had the opportunity [to get the vaccine] will have had it.”

“That gets us a roadmap to Christmas, I think, which means we will be living life different at Christmas than we are now.”

He also announced the government will provide additional payments for people already on social support (who were previously ineligible for the COVID-19 Disaster Payments) if they have lost more than eight hours of work a week. The maximum payments for the COVID-19 Disaster Payments will also increase from $600 to $750 for someone who has lost more than 20 hours work, and from $375 to $450 for people who have lost less than 20 hours.

This is a further development in the government’s ramshackle rollout that has included little clarity until recently, about when under 40s could get the ATAGI-recommended Pfizer.