I suspect it has something to do with public health measures and compliance, but I don’t follow things down there too closely. Was also never widespread which helps too I suppose.
I doubt it has anything to do with natural resistance.
Hope you guys can keep it under wraps. Don’t underestimate it. Fortunately seems like vaccinations will be on line soon so hopefully will be a non-issue.
Its a coded meassage about our culture, rural australia is always in an unending fight against various foreign biological invaders, be it animals, weeds, insects, virus, even fungai.
for instance, in my state, Panama TR4
Do not enter banana farms - YouTube
this quarantine mentality has largely permeated the culture to instinctivly follow the test, trace, isolate. Formerly Melbourne was the outlier, as Melbourne is far less beholden to rural Victoria, than say Sydney is to rural NSW.
Anyway, it means we are afforded the luxury of being able to analyse overseas vaccine rollouts, which is needed because, when the risk of covid19 to the population is soo low, so too must the risks from the vaccines also be correspondingly low.
Australia's has 4 bets on the vaccine.
1st bet fell over, it was the UQ vax, which resulted in false HIV positivity ! (too much HIV tech in that vaccine)
2nd bet was Oxford AZ vaccine, good vaccine but wrong dosing for trials and therefore data, also made in Oz
3rd bet Pfizer, good vaccine but terrible logistics for a large empty county.
4th bet Novavax, will be initially be imported, then the Australian facilities that make Oxford AZ vaccine will transition to Novavax
5th bet is remainder of the global covax-19 facility
Australia’s vaccine agreements | Australian Government Department of Health
the vaccine rollout will run fast, because the time gap between fancy frozen vaccines and normal ones is so low, that standard flu jab style program will result in high results.
1 week old australian goverment presentation
note well, prediction Novavax is expected to be used as a booster.