An expert has told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry it is "unclear" why broad vaccine mandates have remained in place when effective rules on masks have not, as another warned COVID-19 was on track to become one of the leading causes of death in Australia this year.
Victoria's pandemic oversight committee is examining the state's vaccine mandate and its impact on workers and the spread of COVID-19.
On Thursday, the committee heard from epidemiologist Margaret Hellard from the Burnet Institute, who said Australia was likely to surpass 10,000 COVID-19-related deaths this year.
"[That] is far higher, people need to understand, than the standard deaths we would have had related to flu, in any bad year," Professor Hellard said.
"This is not going away. If we in May had implemented across Australia, as we came into another wave … simple measures to reduce transmission by 20 per cent, over 2,000 Australian lives would be saved."
Since the start of 2022, nearly 7,000 Australians have died with COVID-19, including more than 2,100 Victorians.
Professor Hellard told the committee Australia could avoid thousands of COVID-19 infections if the public took measures to reduce the spread of the virus, such as wearing masks and social distancing.
"It's not just an all-or-nothing approach," Professor Hellard said.
"This notion that, 'Oh, they would get sick and die anyway', that's not the case."
Expert questions rationale for broad vaccine mandates
Under Victoria's pandemic orders, every Victorian worker, including contractors, volunteers and students on placement, must have received two vaccination doses to work on site.
A third dose mandate is also in place for frontline workers in industries such as healthcare, emergency services, food processing and education.
Epidemiologist Nancy Baxter questioned the wisdom of maintaining the mandates when other COVID-19 restrictions, including density restrictions and indoor mask wearing, had been scrapped in Victorian workplaces.
"We've eliminated those that we know will be more effective against transmission," Professor Baxter said.
But Professor Hellard said she supported compulsory vaccinations for healthcare workers.
"If you're working with people where you may directly compromise their health … there's certain workplaces where it makes a lot of sense."
Vast majority of nurses, paramedics are vaccinated
On Thursday, the committee heard that almost 99 per cent of Ambulance Victoria's 7,682 staff had received a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The organisation revealed just 25 paramedics and seven office workers had resigned over the state's vaccine mandate.
"We know that COVID-19 vaccination helps protect our people. It also helps protect our workforce and patients," Ambulance Victoria's acting COVID-19 commander Matt McCrohan told the hearing.
"Even before the orders came in, 97 per cent of staff had received a first dose."
It was a similar story among nurses and midwives, where only a small proportion of the Victorian union's 96,000 members objected to vaccination.
"We've had 230 nurses or midwives who resigned their membership because of our strong national stance in relation to vaccination," Australian Nurses and Midwifery Association Victorian secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said.
She said those former members were still registered in the profession, but it was unclear if they quit the job entirely.
"I don't know if they're still working the system – their resignation letters spoke about resigning from the ANMF, not all of them clarified whether they were resigning from their employer at the time."
Mandated fourth doses unlikely
This week, the Premier Daniel Andrews said there were no plans to mandate a fourth dose for healthcare workers, but he intended to push the Commonwealth to allow hospital staff to become eligible to receive it after the issue was raised by the CEO of Barwon Health.
The country's vaccine regulator, ATAGI, currently only recommends a fourth dose for Australians aged over 65 and those at risk of severe illness.
"She made the point to me that for fourth doses, nurses and others were the very first people to be part of the Commonwealth vaccination roll-out," he said.
"Their immunity is obviously waning more than someone who's had their third dose more recently."
"I'm going to talk to the PM about that, I'll talk to my interstate colleagues about that as well."
Jodie McVernon from the Doherty Institute said mandating a fourth vaccine dose for workers would likely not be necessary due to the state's high vaccination rates and population exposure.
"What is it that [the vaccine mandate] is in place to prevent? If it is severe disease then we do believe that our population is reasonably well served by the current level of immunity," Professor McVernon said.
"So in that context a voluntary uptake on a perception of personal risk would generally be considered the most reasonable approach."
