There is a 'close to zero' chance of eliminating the Delta variant of Covid and the AstraZeneca jab must be used to quell surging cases, a top Australian doctor has warned.
While Covid cases in the UK have fallen week-on-week for ten days in a row amid a lifting of restrictions and hopes that the pandemic could be shrinking, the situation is quite different in Austrialia, where armed forces and thousands of police officers are now enforcing the country's 'Zero Covid' lockdown.
Just 17% of adults in the country have been vaccinated, and now Sydney's five million inhabitants are under a strict stay-at-home order due to a worrying surge of nearly 3,000 infections since the middle of June.
Now Professor Bruce Robinson, chairman of Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council, is calling for a rapid vaccine rollout in his country to address the snowballing outbreaks in Queensland and New South Wales, saying people cannot 'afford to be hesitant'.
'The chance of eliminating this is close to zero — there are many people I have spoken to who share that view,' he said.
'We might suppress it but we will be really unlikely to eliminate it and that's because we see people who are clearly infectious without knowing it and they're out and about.'
Earlier this week the former leader of Britain's Conservative Party, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said there were 'some scientists' who wanted no restrictions to be lifted until there was 'zero Covid'.
Bondi Beach, Sydney: Police check IDs to ensure visitors to the beach meet the exercise radius stipulated in lockdown directives
Police officers check ID cards of people walking in the CBD in order to prevent an anti-lockdown protest, during lockdown in Sydney, Australia
Police check IDs in Sydney's Bondi Beach to ensure visitors meet the exercise radius stipulated in lockdown directives
He told The Telegraph: 'The Government is constantly being assailed by scientists whose forecasts seem to be around fulfilling a purpose, keeping us in lockdown.
'We are in a state of unreality, it's as though we don't need an economy, we don't need to meet each other, we don't need to do anything that makes life worthwhile. But we do.'
Professor Robinson, who is spearheading a 'second opinion' signed by some of the country's top medical practitioners, recommending everybody get AstraZeneca, believes
