SYDNEY (LifeSiteNews) – The chief health officer of New South Wales, Australia, has urged citizens to immediately prioritize receiving booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine by asking them to replace Christmas shopping with booking “a COVID booster online.”
Chief Health Officer Dr. Kerry Chant made the guidance into a joke, unable to contain laughter as she advised citizens that “instead of Christmas shopping, everyone shops for a COVID booster online or reaches out for their partner to make them an appointment to go online for a COVID shot.”
After stressing “the urgency” of receiving booster shots, saying the “one single thing we know works [against COVID-19], on the best available evidence at this point in time, is boosters,” Chant added that encouraging family members to get jabbed “is the best, exciting gift that can be given.”
The medic’s comments came as part of wider advice Wednesday to New South Wales (NSW) residents, at which point she recommended the use of face masks in all indoor settings while official mask mandates were being lifted the same day.
Contradicting the government’s decision to remove mask requirements in most settings (except on public transport and in hospitals), Chant insisted that to “preserve Christmas … from a public health position, I am strongly recommending we keep masks and I’m asking the community to do so.”
“It’s a very tiny act and you’re actually protecting yourself but more importantly you’re protecting others,” Chant said.
The health official previously stated her desire to see that 95 percent of those 16 and older have received two doses of the jabs. As things stand, the NSW rate of uptake for both shots sits just shy of her target, at 93.1 percent.
Elsewhere, Chant has stated that she “can’t see that COVID isn’t going to be with us forever,” adding that citizens “need to get used to being vaccinated with COVID vaccines for the future … it will be a regular cycle of vaccination and revaccination.”
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