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Pauline Hanson has been lashed for spreading “dangerous disinformation” after revealing she will not receive a COVID-19 vaccine and questioning Australia’s official death toll.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison was part of the first group to be immunised in Australia, and has been followed by a range of public officials vaccinated publicly to boost confidence in the jab.
But the One Nation senator said she will not get immunised against COVID-19, revealing she had never received a flu jab and had no plans to do so.
“It’s my choice whether I want to have it. Don’t you be concerned; if you have your vaccine, you’re protected, you’re fine,” she told Sky News on Tuesday.
RELATED: Aussies urged to watch out for COVID-19 misinformation
Labor health spokesman Mark Butler accused Ms Hanson of placing public health at risk by undermining confidence in the vaccine.
“Just like Craig Kelly before her, Pauline Hanson is undermining the crucial advertising campaign for the vaccine rollout. There is no place for this dangerous disinformation,” he said.
“Scott Morrison must stand up against Pauline Hanson’s dangerous and wrong health advice.”
Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy said given Ms Hanson’s following, her comments were “not leadership, they’re irresponsible”.
“I think leadership which fails us by supporting conspiracy theories is not leadership,” he told NCA NewsWire.
“The vaccines have been fully tested for safety and effectiveness by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Australia has even had the extra benefit of being able to observe what’s happened overseas.”
But Dr Moy also rejected Ms Hanson’s claim authorities had inflated the official death toll by listing people who died “with COVID, not from it”.
“The recording of COVID-19 is no different to any other disease. A doctor would only list it as the underlying cause of death, or contributing cause, if they genuinely believed that,” he said.
Ms Hanson had attempted to throw doubt on official numbers, saying anyone who died while COVID-positive was considered to have died from the disease.
“If a person died in a car accident and they tested positive for COVID, that was a COVID death. That is wrong, that is deceiving the people,” she claimed.
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