Young people say GPs are still discouraging or blocking them from taking the AstraZeneca vaccine despite changes in the official medical advice and pleas from politicians for everyone to take whatever vaccine is available with 60 per cent of the nation back in lockdown.

Doctors are required to run patients through the rare risk of thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome, or clotting disorder, associated with the AZ vaccine. The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation says the risk of TTS for under 50s is about 3.4 in every 100,000, and the fatality rate is about three per cent, meaning the risk of death is about one in a million.

On July 24, ATAGI recommended anyone over 18 in Greater Sydney “strongly consider” getting the first available vaccine, including AZ – a message reinforced at the daily press conferences by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant. ATAGI’s advice for people under 60 in other outbreak situations is to reassess the benefits of taking the AZ vaccine.

Matt Bransby, a 31-year-old from Liverpool in the centre of Sydney’s outbreak, went to a nearby clinic last Friday but during his consultation was encouraged to take a week to think about it. He says he was told by a doctor “if you insist, I’ll give it to you” but was warned: “What if you’re that one in a million?”

Mr Bransby welcomed the advice. “I definitely felt discouraged, but I wasn’t upset at him for doing that,” he said. “I was grateful that he was being honest for how he felt about it.”

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