Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 3 Nov 2021

Gerard Crawford. Gerard Crawford. Gerard Crawford. The citizens of the country have worked very hard in trying to follow government guidelines with respect to COVID-19. We now have a situation where the numbers are rising again at a worrying level. One of the things that was brought to my attention recently is that a few people around the area I live in who have been fully vaccinated have come down with COVID-19 and it is causing massive worry amongst, shall we say, my own age group, right, the older lemons in society. They are concerned that the vaccine may not be as strong as it should be, although all of the assurances are saying everything is fine, just hang on in there. But I think what we need is we need far better reporting from government. We need a breakdown of the age groups that are being diagnosed with COVID-19. We need to know how many of the people that are in ICU are actually not vaccinated. We need to get the word out there that vaccination is the only way to beat this. To give reassurance to people, I was speaking to some grandparents yesterday and they are now afraid to bring their grandchildren into the house because the word is out there now that children actually do get COVID-19 and can carry COVID-19 and it is causing people to think in a very different way. So I think we need far clearer reporting and a breakdown on a daily basis of the age groups, the age groups that are in ICU, the age groups that have been diagnosed so as people can be relatively comfortable in their thinking around COVID-19. I think to throw out a figure of 3,796 last night, people are saying, what's the point in getting a booster if the thing is no good? We need to keep the faith in the system. The system is working and working well, but we need better reporting right across the board. Thank you very much for giving me the time, Laskar. I will call the Senator up.