When a little learning goes dangerously wrong

The reality isn't simply that medical advice can differ, depending on who gives it. Its origin is political, and the controversy needs to be deconstructed with that in mind.

Of course any vaccine is better than none. Any public health official would prefer to see 26 people (one in a million) die from taking AstraZeneca rather than, say, 10,000 killed by COVID-19 - but that's the wrong comparison.

The real point is Pfizer has no known side effects and has not, so far, been associated with any deaths. It's the preferable vaccine. The problem is we don't have enough. The vital issue that we need to address has nothing to do with the rollout, and everything to do with distracting us as part of an attempt to diffuse blame.

Last year the government plumped for what turned out to be the second-best vaccine. Then, presumably to save money, it cancelled the slightly more expensive alternative. That's the reason we don't have enough Pfizer today. Only one person wins when we waste time debating AstraZeneca's efficacy: Scott Morrison. That's because while everybody else is running around arguing about irrelevancies, he manages to escape any opprobrium for the current situation.

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Before this debacle began, the Prime Minister always positioned himself at the centre of the Covid response. Sure he listened to doctors, but look at the way he took personal control. The PM was happy to be pictured as the "hands on" leader, personally directing efforts to fight the virus. He crafted his image, whether standing decisively in the courtyard at Parliament House, visiting labs, or getting jabs.

The virus gave Morrison an opportunity to resuscitate his image by playing the country's father figure. He turned his "ordinary dad" persona into the equivalent of North Korea's Kim Jong-un, and began weaving a new narrative around his leadership. He, too, would become the "Great Successor", the "Eternal Leader". He responded combatively in response to journalists' quibbles, and this annoyance at being questioned implicitly told its own story. He insisted he was listening to the experts and making the correct decisions. Except he wasn't.

Instead of coming out right at the beginning and admitting that new information had come to hand, the politicians and bureaucrats persisted. Unfortunately, neither the Great Leader nor his best medical advisers appear capable of admitting they made an early, accidental, but crucial and fundamental mistake. The current confusion is simply an attempt to cover up a debacle.