‘Don’t talk about Covid’: major parties accused of virus complacency during election campaign

Infectious disease experts say Australia needs to increase its Covid-19 vaccine booster coverage but ‘public health seems to have dropped off the radar’ amid the election campaign. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAP

The federal election campaign is “clearly a case of Covid Fight Club,” Prof Stuart Turville says. “Don’t talk about it.”

Turville, a virologist at the University of New South Wales, wonders when Australia’s continuous Covid-19 deaths and slowing booster shot rates “will become an issue of discussion within our government”.